When God called His own people out of the land of Egypt and out of their harsh bondage of slavery, He insisted that they serve Him and not the other nations around them by worshiping their false gods. As far as Jesus is concerned, “as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me” ( Matt 25:40).Įxodus 23:25 “You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you.” We might not be able to heal the sick, but we can at least visit them. If there are others in prison, we can go to them. When Jesus commanded the church to be the Body of Christ, He fully intended that we walk in the works that God has foreordained long ago for us to do ( Eph 2:10), and so when we seek the poorly clothed, we can help them. Matthew 25:36 “I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” That’s why when he was weak, he was really strong. That’s why he was glad to boast in his weakness “so that the power of Christ may rest upon” him. Paul was beaten, stoned, whipped, given lashes, and suffered hunger, thirst, and cold while in prison, but even with all this which could have weakened him physically or emotionally, he knew that Christ’s power is easier to see in weakness. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. There is no guarantee in this verse that God will heal everyone if they have enough faith, but perhaps James is insinuating that if a person is sick due to sin, the sins that cause the illness will be forgiven and perhaps their sickness will be removed, but James was certainly noting the importance of believing faith.Ģ Corinthians 12:9-10 “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” ( James 5:15-16). Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. James apparently knew enough of the Old Testament to know that “the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” James 5:13-14 “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. That was Isaiah’s intent in writing chapter 53. The healing that this passage promises is beyond a physical recovery that even if a person is healed, they’ll eventually die, so the greatest healing of all is the removal of our sins by Jesus bearing them on the cross. When the Apostle Peter wrote about Jesus’ bearing our sins on the cross, he referred to Isaiah 53:5 which says, “with his wounds we are healed” ( Isaiah 53:5b), but it was in the context of spiritual healing and not a physical sickness, as Jesus “was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace” ( Isaiah 53:5a). 1 Peter 2:24 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
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