“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” James 5:16
The author of this verse, James, is the half brother of Jesus Christ. What was that like? To grow up with someone, and then as an adult, to have him proclaimed God. Not surprisingly, James first doubted the divinity of Jesus Christ. No one who has ever had a brother can blame him for doubting. Fortunately, his doubt didn’t win.
James wrote the book of James late in his life, after he had been the pastor of a Judean Church for 30 years. (Side Note: How do you pastor a church, without the book of James to refer to!? How did he encourage his people to serve? ) He believed in the teachings of his brother, and after Jesus had ascended to heaven, James became a man known for prayer. He “spent so much time on his knees in prayer that they became hard and callous like a camel’s knees.”
The longing for his God. The longing for his Savior. The longing for his brother. All attainable through the fulfillment of the Holy Spirit.
James was martyred sometime about the year 62 A.D. or 66 A.D., when he was brought before the Sanhedrin, and was commanded,
”The brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, must proclaim from one of the galleries of the Temple, that Jesus Was Not the Messiah.”
Praise God for the hours spent in prayer, because when James cried out this final testimony of Christ, he said, “Jesus Was the Son of God and the Judge of the World.”
Today is the 60th Annual National Day of Prayer. It was established in 1952, when the bill was unanimously passed by both houses of congress and signed into law by President Truman.
2 comments
Shanda
May 5, 2011 at 9:33 pm (UTC -7)
Wow…that was inspired! Makes me ashamed of my jammies! Thank you also for the new insight on James. I didn't know he was such a prayer warrier.
Howard Jones
May 16, 2012 at 2:51 am (UTC -7)
Really inspirational post. Thanks a lot for sharing. I feel drawn more closer to God.
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