Chapter 6 - Pray the Prayer of Faith
The Spirit of the Lord spoke in my spirit and literally said, “Son, I want you to teach in this area, because this is a vital subject for My people to understand in their walk of faith. This area is where many of My people miss it: praying the prayer of faith.” He said, “Bring understanding to My people so that they can get their saying and their praying consistent.”
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. I 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. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven (James 5:13-15).
James tells us that the prayer of faith will save the sick. Notice, he does not just say that “Prayer will save the sick”; he says, “the prayer of faith will save.” So it is not just praying, but it is the prayer of faith. This word save here is the word sozo in Greek, which actually means “to set free, deliver or rescue.” And because we are talking about an eternal law, this principle will work for anything. The prayer of faith will deliver you from carnality, insecurity, lukewarm spiritually, depression, sickness or anything else and will save you and your household.
Our working definition of faith is found in James chapter 2, and anywhere you see the word faith in the New Covenant, insert the biblical working definition to get clarity in what the Word id telling you, Now, when the Bible speaks of faith, it is talking about a conviction or persuasion – in other words, believing plus corresponding action. In Second Corinthians 4:13, Paul says; “And since we have ht same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak.” There, the word spirit does not refer to necessarily and entity or deity, but the word actually means vital principle and mental disposition. (I know we’ve be through this already, but it is vital that we go through it at each step!)
Faith has a vital principle, which is faith “speaks what it believes.” The man or woman who is walking or living by faith see things a certain way. According to Romans 10:8, the mental disposition of faith is that “the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart….” That is the word of faith. The mental disposition of faith is that it is always present tense, or that faith is always is. A statement of faith is stated in the present tense, no in the past or the future tense, but faith says, “it is.”
So when James tells us that the prayer of faith will save th sick and deliver, he is telling us about a certain way of praying that will bring deliverance. The word pray in James chapter 5 is the Greek word proseuchomai, which is translated “pray” in Matthew 6 and Luke 11, where Jesus responds to His disciples when they say, “Master, teach us to pray.” The Greek word proseuchomai actually means to “make a vow or a declaration in the direction of God.” Understanding that is what prayer means, expand your definition of prayer. Based on what this word really means, prayer is not just asking God for something.
Religion has taught us that I am praying when I ask, or if I get in a certain posture, or if it sounds a certain way. Yet, when you understand the true biblical definition of prayer, you can begin to fulfill the command given in the Scripture to pray without ceasing. That does not mean that I have to be somewhere shut off from people in a closed room all my life, so spiritually-minded that I am no earthly good. James is saying that the now or declaration made in the direction of God, prayer that speaks what it believes in the present tense of faith, will deliver!
