I Need the Prayers...the Wayfarer 11/20/17

I Need the Prayers
11/20/17

James 5:15-16 King James Version (KJV)

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.

¹⁶ 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.

Prayer is the keystone and foundation of faith, communication with God, through Christ Jesus, imperative to the maintenance and continuance of that faith.

Each and every child of God must daily confront a crisis of that faith as the struggle intensifies in the battles fought with the forces of a world that constantly attempts to deny the very precept on which that faith is founded.

Hardships and trials, temptation, and turmoil are an ongoing state of existence faced by every individual, every family, every community, village, town, city, state, regional division and nation that comprises the whole of humanity around the globe.

With these hardships, trials, temptations, and the turmoil that beset us daily comes sorrows, pain, discomfort and discomfiture that, too often, create the desire for surrender to the very cause of their existence… a surrender to the evil that surrounds us in a world temporarily given to the machinations of the same creature that brought that evil into being.

Today’s title comes from another of the old hymns in the hymnal I have come to love, that offers praise and lamentation, comfort and consolation, advice and warning, all taken from a greater means of finding each, the pages of God’s Word, the very source of all that is to be found that defines and strengthens the required faith as endurance is required throughout the journey begun at birth toward the final destination preordained, predestined for each of us, yet allowing the free will to choose that destination if faith is chosen over unbelief.

I need the prayers

I need the prayers of those I love,
While trav’ling o’er life’s rugged way,
That I may true and faithful be,
And live for Jesus every day.

Refrain

I want my friends to pray for me,
To bear my tempted soul above,
And intercede with God for me;
I need the prayers of those I love.

I need the prayers of those I love,
To help me in each trying hour,
To bear my tempted soul to Him,
That He may keep me by His power.

Refrain

I want my friends to pray for me,
To hold me up on wings of faith,
That I may walk the narrow way,
Kept by our Father’s glorious grace.

Refrain

James began the chapter from which the opening verses were taken with the warning, the half of the gospel that must be accepted in conjunction with the second half, that of the Promise, to remind us of the things that were faced daily then and are faced daily now that consistently necessitate our prayer, necessitate endurance that is attainable only through faith, necessitate the sharing of both the warning and promise given and guaranteed through Christ Jesus.

James 5 King James Version (KJV)

5 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

² Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

³ Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

⁴ Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

⁵ Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.

⁶ Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

As the world speeds onward toward its inevitable end, also preordained and predestined by the One who created it, that warning should ring louder and more clearly as the evidence of each of the things warned about rears its ugly head, making the admonition given ever more paramount for any willing to heed it.

⁷ Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

⁸ Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

⁹ Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.

¹⁰ Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.

¹¹ Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

¹² But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.

¹³ Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.

¹⁴ 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:

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.

¹⁶ 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.

¹⁷ Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.

¹⁸ And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

¹⁹ Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

²⁰ Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

That 20^th verse, and its content, are the goal of any and all who desire to see their loved ones find the WAY the TRUTH and the LIFE that IS the Promise, already delivered through Christ Jesus.

Prayer is the key to the attainment of that goal.

When standing firm is difficult, kneeling is the only means of standing, not kneeling in defeat, but kneeling in supplication for the strength to endure, ever mindful of wherein that strength resides, wherein all hope resides, wherein the only righteousness resides, and from Whom the promise has come.

Pray for one another! Give those prayers legs by remaining true to the admonition to endure.

Pass on both the warning and the promise.

Philippians 4:4-9 King James Version (KJV)

⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.

⁵ Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.

⁶ Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

⁷ And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

⁸ Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

⁹ Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

I need your prayers, you, in turn have mine, most importantly we have the promise already given through those given by Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 1:12King James Version (KJV)

¹² For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

Amen and Amen

the Wayfarer