Healing is a very practical aspect of our faith, and Jesus truly wants us to have it, but we have to take the step to claim it for ourselves, otherwise we will miss out on the fullness of life that we have in Him. James 5:13-16 gives us very practical instructions on this subject:

Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? 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 shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

When James asks if anyone is “afflicted,” he is using the Greek word kakopatheo (κακοπαθέω), which is a compound of the two words kakos (κακός) and pathos (πάθος). Kakos is a terrible word that describes something foul, vile, horrible, and destructive. Pathos indicates the mind and emotions, so together, these words refer to the kind of horrible suffering that affects the mind and emotions.

Notice that what James tells us to do in a situation like this is to pray. In fact, James puts the responsibility of prayer primarily on the person who is going through the hard time. This tells us that if you are suffering, before you ask anyone else to pray, you need to be praying yourself. It is your responsibility first.

In the same pattern, James says, “Is any merry? Let him sing psalms.” Again, James is reinforcing the idea that we as individuals are responsible for responding to our situations. Just like the person going through a hard time should pray, the person being blessed should rejoice, which means you do not have to wait on anybody else to pray or rejoice with you. It may be disappointing when you’re excited about something and no one else seems to understand, but your response of rejoicing simply is not dependent on them — it’s up to you!

Of course, things happen sometimes that feel beyond our control, and that can tempt us to avoid responsibility for our responses. For such situations, I recommend you look at the next verse:

“Is any sick among you? 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 5:14

The word “sick” that is used here is the Greek word astheneo (ἀσθενέω), a word that generally describes a person who is frail in health, so physically weak that they are unable to travel. That is why James’s command for such a person is to “call for the elders of the church.” This person is so sick that he cannot go to church, so James says that in this particular case, you need to call the church elders to come to you. Even in this situation when the sick person could be seen as helpless, unaccountable for his actions, James still puts ownership on the afflicted. This is an essential mindset for us to embrace, friends!

As verse 14 goes on, James gives very specific instructions for the healing of this sick person, and it gives us some insight into what is required for relief from sickness: “…let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.”

Many of us would expect prayer to be involved, but James further specifies that the elders should also anoint the sick person with oil. Now, oil itself has no healing properties. It is simply oil, but in both the Old and in the New Testaments, it symbolically depicts the presence of the Holy Spirit and the power of God. Although the oil itself does not heal, it is a point of contact for the sick person to believe that God’s presence is going to come upon him and bring healing to his body. The moment the oil is applied in prayer is the moment the sick person is to release his faith.

More importantly, the verse says the anointing should happen “in the name of the Lord.” The word “name” here, the Greek word onoma (ὄνομα), represents the full authority that exists in the person being named, in this case, Jesus.

This is very powerful and very important to the meaning of this verse. By praying in Jesus’ name, believers actually stand in the physical place of Jesus, who is in Heaven, and act on His behalf in the authority that He has invested in them as His official representatives. Thus, the power is not found in the oil being used to anoint the sick but in the expressed authority of Jesus’ name in the fellow believers.

In short, the prayer is prayed by someone who is standing by the bedside on Jesus’ behalf. Jesus is not there physically because He is in Heaven, but when you pray in the name of Jesus, you stand in His position to do what He would do if He were there. And what would He do if He were there? He would heal that person. There is no doubt about it. He would heal that person if He was standing next to them, and He will do just that through you. That is why James continues to say in verse 15:

And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

The word “save” here is the word sozo (σῴζω), which is the old Greek word which means to heal. It conveys the idea of wholeness in every part of your life, which means this is not just a simple touch. This is a deep touch. This same word also means to deliver one from enemies, to protect, to keep safe, and to put one under protection. This is a major move of God to totally deliver the person that is sick!

All together, we see a process where prayer is lifted up in faith, and the church elders stand in the position and authority of Jesus, anointing the sick person’s head with oil to provide a touch point. Then the Bible says, “The prayer of faith shall raise him up.” In Greek, “raise…up” is the word egeiro (ἐγείρω), which means to raise and comes from the same root as the word that we get “resurrection” from. In other words, this sick person will be resurrected. He who was so gravely ill that he was close to death will be raised out of his situation, a change so miraculous that it will be as though he was resurrected from the dead.

James adds at the end of verse 15, “…and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”

Healing and forgiveness are very closely related. As Jesus says in Matthew 9:5, “For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?”

With the prayer of faith, sickness can be healed, but it is so important for a believer to repent of his sins, especially since those sins may be what made him sick in the first place. When James talks about sins in this verse, it is the plural version of the word hamartia (ἁμαρτία), which means to miss the mark, to fall short, to repeatedly fail, or to do something wrong. By linking these together, James implies that in this particular case, the person may have done something wrong that has opened the door to his affliction, but if he confesses that wrong, he will be forgiven. Together, the prayer of faith and the confession of sins will deliver the believer from whatever it is that has made him sick.

This is why James says in verse 16, “Confess your faults one to another.” It is sometimes difficult to confess our faults, but no matter how it makes us feel, we have got to work up the nerve to do it. Confess your faults to one another and then, like James says, “pray one for another, that ye may be healed.” We need to confess to and pray for each other so we can find deliverance and freedom. We are not confessing things just to get them off of our hearts — we have an objective, and that objective is healing.

Before I finish, I want to tell you one more thing about healing. In this verse, “healed” is the Greek word iaomai (ἰάομαι). Iaomai means to cure, and in the ancient world, it usually described something that you were cured of over a period of time. We can take from this that sometimes, deliverance spans a long period of time, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t working. Just because a prayer is not answered immediately does not mean that the Lord is not answering it.

In fact, James addresses such doubt in the second half of verse 16, saying, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” The Greek literally means, “the prayer of a righteous man has much power and much strength.” If you still don’t think that your prayer has the power to heal you, just look at James’ example of Elijah in verse 17. Elijah was a man like any of the rest of us, “subject to like passions as we are” (James 5:17), yet he had great power when he prayed, power to keep the rain from falling for three and a half years!

Do not think to yourself that your struggles eliminate you from the opportunity to pray powerfully. Pray, release your faith, and be specific when you speak to God, and He will move. If you’re so sick that you can’t get to church to request prayer, request somebody come to your house. If you’re bound by some failure in your life, don’t stay bound — work up the nerve to blurt it out! Whatever affliction you are facing, you have the power and responsibility to respond to it according to God’s will, and when you do, you will find that your prayers avail much.