I believe one of the greatest relationships you can have is where you can count on them to pray for you. When we pray for one another as we believe for an answer, our faith is strengthened. I can think of times in my life where I’ve prayed for an answer from God for so long that my prayers became rote instead of being filled with faith. When I invited a friend to pray with me for that answer, they brought fresh faith and strengthen me where I felt helpless. All of a sudden where my faith had begun to wain, it began to rise up again. Where I had given up, I had hope. If you don’t have friends like this, find them at your church. There are people who faith to move mountains and they don’t mind taking your needs to God.
In Luke 5 Jesus was gaining notoriety because of His teaching and for healing the sick. People were coming from everywhere to see Him. As He was teaching in a house, some people carried their paralyzed friend on a stretcher to Jesus to be healed. There were so many people in and around the house that they couldn’t get to Jesus. Instead of being discouraged or even waiting until He left the house, the carried their friend up to the roof of the house. They began to pull back the tiles and other roofing materials until they had enough room to lower their friend to Jesus. Then verse 20 says, “Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the man, ‘Young man, your sins are forgiven’” (NLT). Did you catch that? Jesus saw the faith of the friends and was moved. He then healed the man after that.
James 5:16 says, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” We need friends we can be vulnerable enough with to confess our sins to and who will pray for us for healing. We tend to pray the most earnestly for those we care about. Just before this verse, it says you can go to the elders of your church to be prayed over for healing to. In both of these instances and in Luke 5, it’s the prayers of others who help bring healing. Quit trying to fight alone or pray alone for your needs. Share them with someone you trust. Your faith will rise because of it, and who knows, they may be the ones who pray the roof off and set your needs right in front of Jesus.
Photo by Tony Lomas on Unsplash
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 