Tonight’s Bible study looked at James 5:14-18, controversial verses in some circles about prayer, faith and healing. James is continuing his teaching on prayer, this time looking at the question ‘Is anyone among you sick?’ (James 5:14) The nature of the sickness is not specified (the word astheneō means weakness, being feeble, being diseased or sick), so there was discussion about whether this refers to physical sickness only or spiritual ‘sickness’ as well. Whatever the nature of the sickness, there is both a responsibility on the sick person to request prayer from the elders of the church and a corresponding responsibility on the part of those church leaders (by whatever title they are known!) to pray for the person and to anoint with oil.

Why can’t we just pray for ourselves, as James tells us to do in James 5:13 when we are in trouble? Why do we need to call on others to pray? Why do we have to call on church leaders? Are they just ‘super-spiritual’, closer to God than the average church member? Church leaders are appointed by God and with that calling comes a responsibility to them to pray, but that is not to say that it is the virtue of the person praying which makes all the difference of itself! In all of this, James is keen for us to recognise that it is the Lord who raises people up. Faith – that trust in God to make a difference to our lives and our situations – is vital, but it is God who heals. Perhaps this is one reason James emphasises the local church in all its diversity and plurality, rather than focussing on a particular person with gifts of healing (as outlined in 1 Corinthians 12).

The prayer of faith is offered by the church elders, accompanied by anointing with oil (symbolic of the Holy Spirit, another reminder that it is God who heals, and also a symbol of healing – see Luke 10:34, Isaiah 1:6). Prayer for healing was common in the New Testament (see Mark 6:13, Acts 3:6), but it is all done in the name of the Lord (see also Luke 10:17). Prayer is offered in the name of Jesus, iis commanded and commissioned by Jesus and is carried out in the context of the local church community.

It is not always easy to know why some people seem to receive healing instantaneously and others do not. The connection between sin and sickness has long been debated, but Jesus effectively taught us that sickness is not necessarily the result of sin (see John 9:1-3). In all these ponderings, we have to accept that God’s ways are not always our ways: Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh’ was not removed by God because he needed to learn the valuable lesson of weakness being the vehicle for God’s strength (2 Cor 12:7-10). Nonetheless, James tells us that the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well (James 5:15).

Prayer is clearly a powerful and effective spiritual weapon. James uses Elijah as an illustration of the effectiveness of prayer (James 5:17-18). Elijah was an ordinary person like us, we are told; in other words, we can all be effective in our prayer lives. Moreover, the community nature of our walk with God is stressed in verse 16 where we are urged to confess our sins and pray for each other.

It takes courage to ask for prayer, because it means admitting weakness; it takes courage to confess our sins, because we do not like to admit to them! But as we realise the need to develop our prayer life, we see that there is no shame in weakness. Rather, there is strength in community and power in prayer because we are linked through it to the God who is all-powerful and all-loving.

One of my favourite Christian authors, Brennan Manning, died on 12th April at the age of 78. I was surprised at how much I felt a sense of loss at that news. The sense of loss is not for him: as his family said, there is much comfort “in the fact that he is resting in the loving arms of his Abba.” No, the sense of loss is entirely selfish! I can no longer expect new books, new spiritual insights, further revelations of the Father-heart of God from his pen and that saddened me enormously.

Starting in 1970 with the publication of Gentle Revolutionaries, Manning wrote and published more than 20 books, the most famous of which was The Ragamuffin Gospel. His alcoholism in the context of being a Franciscan priest was the backdrop for much of his spiritual reflection. As we spend this month praying for those who battle addictions, I find it encouraging that God uses us even with our weaknesses and addictions. In fact, Hebrews reminds us “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” (Heb 4:15) Sometimes we need to be reminded that God uses the weak things of the world to shame the strong (see 1 Cor 1:26-29).

Brennan Manning once described his ministry in this way: to ‘help sinners journey from self-hatred to self-acceptance.’ (quoted in a Christianity Today article published in 2004). He said that we are all on a journey in life: travelling this road daily, never too far from a character he calls the Imposter. Everyone’s got one. It’s “the slick, sick, and subtle impersonator of my true self.” The persona craves to be liked, loved, approved, accepted, to fit in. “It’s the self that refuses to accept that my true self, centered in Christ, is really more likeable, more attractive, and more real than the fallen self.”

One of the things that most challenged me as I read obituaries was this quote from the same article: ‘Beneath Manning’s struggle with alcoholism is his struggle with a fiercer foe: self-hatred. One of the greatest regrets of his life is “all the time I’ve wasted in shame, guilt, remorse, and self-condemnation.” He’s not speaking about the appropriate guilt one ought to feel after committing a sin. He’s talking about wallowing in guilt, almost indulging in it, which is “basically a kind of idolatry where I’m the center of my focus and concern.” ‘

Many of us might think there can be no greater struggle than trying to break an addiction like alcoholism or drugs. But I identified very strongly with this ‘fiercer foe’. My debt to Brennan Manning, as to all authors whose words have illuminated my life, is great. We are all pilgrims on a journey, learning to accept ourselves as God accepts us and to love ourselves and others as He does. As Michael Card said of Brennan Manning, “He has freed me up to be able to show that I have weaknesses, too, and that God still uses me in spite of them and sometimes perhaps because of them.”

We would doubtless prefer God to make us infallibly strong and never to sin; we much prefer heroes to be flawless and without fears. But we need to accept that we are flawed and recognise, nonetheless, that God’s love is greater than any of our weaknesses and sins. It’s not a case of our grip on God being strong enough to keep us safe, but His grip on us being stronger than the strongest glue!

Garry continued his series on the Beatitudes (‘Looking For Heroes’) last night, looking at Matthew 5:7: ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.’

Often, if we are wronged, we long for justice, but so often, when we are in the wrong, we realise we need mercy. Mercy is not the same as justice. Mercy is often doing what is not deserved; it is the unexpected act of generosity. Our sense of justice and righteousness is often offended by mercy (see the Parable of the Workers, Matthew 20:1-16, when the all-day workers are outraged that the owner pays those who have only worked an hour the same rate as they have received for a full day’s work!)

Mercy Defined
Mercy (‘hesed’) is not an emotional sense of pity for someone, but a determined effort to feel what someone else is feeling and to do something about it; it carries with it the idea of getting in someone else’s shoes and feeling what they are feeling. It is allied to compassion (‘suffering with’) and allows us to forgive freely, for we understand and love. Grace is a loving response when love is undeserved; mercy is prompted by the misery and helplessness of another and is a characteristic of God.

Mercy Declined
We can decline to accept mercy for ourselves and we can also decline to show mercy to others. Mercy is often perceived as weakness, which is one reason we struggle to receive and to give it. In the Roman culture of Jesus’s time, the four cardinal virtues were wisdom, justice, temperance and courage; mercy was perceived as weakness because it undermined justice. Aristotle said that ‘pity is a troublesome emotion.’ Jesus accused the Pharisees of not showing mercy (Matt 23:23) even as they declared themselves champions of justice.

Often, mercy is declined because it is not perceived to be a masculine attribute. In the Western world, it is felt that to be manly, you must shun all that is feminine, must be successful, aggressive and self-reliant. This mindset can be in God’s people too, but is not consistent with Biblical truth, for the fact remains that we cannot save ourselves and need God’s mercy. God is merciful (see Romans 9:14-15, Nehemiah 9:31) and we need to accept this mercy and reflect it back to others.

Mercy Declared
God, because He is merciful, wants us to be merciful too; He wants us to reflect His character in every way. Hos 6:6 reminds us that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. The parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt 18:21-25) shows us that as we receive mercy, we have to reflect that to others. The unforgiving servant is chastised because he did not show mercy to his fellow-servant, even though he himself had experienced great mercy. Mercy is costly (the master cancelled the servant’s great debt), but it grows as a result of our experience of a merciful God. We then become imitators of God (see Matt 5:41-48 & 1 Thess 1:6) and have pity (or mercy) on those in need (see 1 John 3:17-18).

The promise we receive in the Beatitudes is that those who are merciful will be shown mercy. Mercy is like a cycle: we receive mercy, we show mercy, we receive more mercy. We need to be a stream of mercy to others, not a dam. Just as being forgiven places on us a responsibility to forgive, so we have a duty to be merciful. We may not receive mercy from other people, but we will definitely receive mercy from God!

Stephen spoke this morning from Matt 23:8-12 about the words that we use. Often, we view ourselves from an earthly viewoint, regarding status and standing as being of utmost importance. When we think about ‘teachers’ and ‘fathers’, we tend to view these things with our own understanding of the importance of names and like to invest in these roles the authority and status we perceive these words to have. We have to be careful not to be limited in our understanding of the meanings of words, however, and need to recognise that there is power in the names of God which cannot be attributed in the same way to those bearing those names in earthly terms. God is so much more than any earthly role!

Sometimes we put people on a pedestal simply because of the job title they have. We need to understand that God has far more authority than any earthly figure and that there is a vast difference between earthly position and power and God’s position and power. Eph 4:6 reminds us that there is one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. Jesus reminded His disciples that the greatest among us must learn to serve and that humility comes before exaltation, which is completely the opposite way round to how the world works. We need to recognise God’s authority and power in our lives and in the world and to place Him above everything else in our lives.

I think Casting Crowns’ ‘East To West’ is a timely reminder both of the struggle we sometimes have with sin and of the provision God has made for us. We don’t have to be what we used to be; we can become ‘new creations in Christ Jesus’ (2 Cor 5:17).

“Here I am, Lord, and I’m drowning in Your sea of forgetfulness;
The chains of yesterday surround me;
I yearn for peace and rest.
I don’t want to end up where You found me
And it echoes in my mind, keeps me awake tonight.
I know You’ve cast my sin as far as the east is from the west
And I stand before You now as though I’ve never sinned,
But today I feel like I’m just one mistake away from You leaving me this way.

Jesus, You know just how far the east is from the west.
I don’t have to see the man I’ve been come rising up in me again.
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest
’cause You know just how far the east is from the west
From one scarred hand to the other
One scarred hand to the other
From one scarred hand to the other.” (‘East To West’, Casting Crowns)
‘East To West’, Casting Crowns

Addiction is the topic for prayer for April and this is such a far-reaching and wide-ranging topic that it can make us feel very helpless when we are praying for people we know and situations that come to our attention. Becaues of the media focus on, and obvious visible consequences of, some addictions such as gambling, pornography, alcohol dependency or drug use, it is easy to focus on these addictions alone, but I think it behoves us to dig a little deeper into the motivations behind addictions as we pray and seek to help those who appear, at times, to be incapable of breaking free from such destructive patterns of behaviour.

The classic hallmarks of addiction include impaired control over substances or behaviour, preoccupation with the substance or behaviour, continued use despite consequences, and denial. Habits and patterns associated with addiction are typically characterised by immediate gratification (short-term reward), coupled with delayed deleterious effects (long-term costs). In other words, the short-term high or good feeling engendered by the substance or behaviour outweighs the known long-term damage. A person may well know that what they are doing is harmful to themselves and to their loved ones, but they cannot help themselves.

At the heart of all addictions is our sinful tendency to want to please ourselves more than others and more than God. We put ourselves first. We do what feels good to us at the moment and prefer to ignore the consequences. Proverbs 14:12 says “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.” This is true of all life lived in our own strength and wisdom rather than God’s, not just true of ‘addicts’.

Christian teaching shows us that sin is the deeply-rooted problem at the heart of all the other visible problems in the world today, whether those problems are violence, war, hatred, addiction, poverty or disease. Sin has marred and spoiled God’s perfect creation. At the heart of sin lies man’s desire to be independent of God and to be like God. Any time we put something else in the place of God (idolatry), we move away from the relationship between God and man for which we were created.

The hope God holds out to us is that He has done something about this sin problem which opens the door to a new way of living. Paul expounds this theme in Romans 6, when he talks about us having died to sin and being raised to new life in Christ and no longer being slaves to sin: “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” (Rom 6:11-14)

When we pray for those battling addiction, we pray for this transforming, explosive power to be revealed to them. We also know, however, that God requires us then to daily take up our cross, deny ourselves and choose to follow Him. Life is made up of daily choices, choices that are actually made minute-by-minute. Will we choose God’s way of doing things or will we take the short-cut? Will we learn to deny ourselves or will we seek the ‘quick fix’? Will we learn to humble ourselves before God, relying on His grace and power, or will we think we can go it alone and solve our problems with our own strategies and in our own strength? Paul talks about the struggle between the sin-life and the Spirit-life in Romans 7, eloquent words with which we all identify: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Rom 7:15-19)

As we pray about this topic, our own tendencies to put other things in God’s place are highlighted and we realise we all need God to help us to overcome temptation and to walk in grace. After all, it is not necessarily the thing itself which is harmful or sinful – alcohol in moderation is not wrong; exercise in its rightful place is helpful to healthy living; sex is God’s gift to us when channelled as He has directed. What is harmful is our tendency to sin, our bias towards corrupting the good and perfect gifts God gives us and our inability to obey His commands.

No one is without sin and we all need to receive God’s grace and walk by faith. As we pray, let’s recognise God’s deliverance and power (Paul goes on to say ‘Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ Rom 7:24-25), but let’s also recognise the need for daily discipleship, for accountability, for taking responsibility for every single choice we make. Does it honour God or does it satisfy the sinful nature? Dig deep into your own heart and know that there is grace enough for every one of us to live in freedom, not slavery to sin.