What Does the book of James Tell us About Prayer?

 The Importance of the Unity in the Church: James and the Power of Prayer

The church I attend held a prayer service last night. For the last 3 months or so we’ve been slowly going through the book of James. Written by James the brother of Jesus, it’s a practical and short New Testament letter to an early church in Jerusalem. Faith is a common theme, as is confession of sins and righteous living. The last chapter gives practical steps for praying over the sick and confessing sins to one another. Prayer is central to building strong Christian communities inside and outside the church walls.

Confession and Healing

In that attitude, a slightly different service was arranged to maximize one on one prayer. Instead of a single sermon, there were stations throughout the sanctuary with prayer partners. We used the last chapter of James (5) as a templet for faith in practice.

First comes obedience to the Word, then a move of the Spirit to do good works.

 “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, an let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” (13-14)

Our team usually prays at the end of the service. Volunteers (Elders) come forward to wait and agree with those in need. It’s not just for the sick either. A fair amount need prayer for job situations, marriage and issues with families and kids. Many are there on behalf of others. Prayer is such an integral part of a Christian community that I feel terrible for those who aren’t afforded it. I don’t mean corporate prayer from the leadership. I’m talking about the ground level one of one type of prayer. We could all do well to follow the instruction of the apostle Paul and “…bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

Doers and Hearers

To bear another’s burden might begin with prayer, but often requires follow ups and practical help. Church leadership does this. It’s part of their mission. But the church isn’t just an organization of ordained ministers who get paid to preach and visit members in the hospital. It’s a union of people, committed to growing in faith and knowledge of the scripture. The two biggest tasks for Christians are, preaching the gospel to those outside the church and bearing the burdens of those inside it. As it was with the first church in the book of Acts, it remains to this day. Faith in practice for the unity of the church and its impact on non-believers, is a strong theme from the book of James. As is waiting and trusting in God's plan.

He follows up his instructions to the elders about healing. “And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (15-16).

Now we have a starting point. Sickness, disease and injury are realities of life. But our confidence for healing was secured by the Christ’s resurrection. James doesn’t spend time on legal arguments about the authority residing in the church over disease. Healing is axiomatic. That tells me the principle of divine authority was understood when James wrote his letter. No explanation was needed.

Agreement and Reluctance

James is concerned with doing and being the church. Faith plus works equals life in Christ.

God works through His people as a channel to others. This is important to remember during these sessions of healing prayer. We don’t heal or save anyone. The Christian’s role is to agree with scripture for the one in need. We speak and God moves. A lot of the reluctance around healing prayer is connected to the emotionalism of tent revival meetings from the 1980s. Large churches in particular want to avoid anything that seems weird or out of control. Even Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, lays out some restrictions for church control over speaking in tongues during service. The idea being, people won’t join if they’re afraid of being in cult.

The gospel is for everyone so handle with care.

But the scripture is clear on the power of God when the gospel is preached. In Acts 10, Peter speaks to the house of Cornelius and they have an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Peter became the channel of God’s power by being obedient to the vision he had about the Gentiles.

Conclusion

This is the model for churches. Obedience proceeds salvation and healing. More believers are brought into the faith because they see the goodness of God, demonstrated through healing. We prayed for almost 500 people in all 3 services this weekend. Some responded with salvation and others believed for physical healing. The ones I prayed with were there for healing on behalf of others. I expect miraculous stories in the weeks ahead and I can’t wait to hear them.

Immigration and Populism in the West

 

The Future Of the West and Populism: The Disaster of Unchecked Immigration

I started reading a book called the Guns of August. 

It’s supposedly one of the best books on World War I. So far it’s giving a lot of background on the monarchies running most of Europe before the war. So many of them were related. Since the Middle Ages, kings and queens married off their kids to the kids of other rulers. After a few hundred years, Western Europe was made up of a handful of families. How much the world has changed since these monarchies lost power? World War II was the beginning of the end for most of the European dynasties. The families were able to keep their titles, but power shifted to elected governments. Obviously it’s different from country to country, but that model certainly carried the day.

The current global order with look different in the next few years as populism reasserts the need for sovereignty, after being nearly lost by mass immigration.

Global Order

The struggle is between a global order and a nationalist/populist surge. The global order got going after World War II with the Bretton Woods meeting of business and government leaders. The purpose of the meeting was to establish a way to stabilize trade and institute a rules based order on currency exchange. Partly to counter the instability of Communism, they believed economic alliances and free trade was key to stability.

In that same vein, European coal and steel industries came together in a multi country alliance after the Treaty of Paris (1951). Once those initial 6 countries (West Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands) were in a common market, additional countries (Portugal, Spain) joined the alliance. It’s been called the European Union since 1992, and includes all of Western Europe and even a few Slavic countries (Slovakia, Bulgaria).

Whatever the benefits to international organizations, the global order runs roughshod over the sovereignty of nation states. America still maintains a lot of independence in real terms, but big decisions aren’t voted on by the public. Immigration is the biggest of all.  

Cultural Stressors

 Europe, Canada and America have all made the same mistake since at least the 1980s. They’ve taken in too many immigrants from other parts of the world for mostly economic reasons. Often the cultures are very different. This isn’t a moot point either. North African Muslims think very little of females, same with Pakistani Muslims. Rape of white girls in England is a terrible problem in a lot of the cities where large populations of them live.

In America the problem is just one of rampant crime. When you don’t know who is in the country it puts a strain on everyone, law enforcement included. I’m not saying we don’t have crime or violence without illegal immigration either. But in the last 20 years or so the lack of attention to the border has become a problem. It’s really because illegal immigration benefits the globalist model that it’s been impossible to stop. The laws on emigrating to another country don’t matter if no one enforces them in the first place. The population never got a vote on immigration. After so many years of open borders, rampant crime and Visa abuses, a strong populist party began to form.

In America Republican populism pushed Trump to the presidency. In Britain it’s unclear how strong the populist sentiment is. Tommy Robinson might be the most effective spokesman for the Right, despite the mainstream media calling him a racist. He gets tossed into jail for the smallest slights. Cleary the British government fears him. Will Nigel Farage be enough of a blunt instrument to deport illegals and slam the door shut on further immigration? He seems more opportunist than agent of change, but we will see. Populism can easily go Left wing as well. It’s not a sure bet that it stays on the Right.

New York City just elected a Socialist mayor from Uganda, but in other ways the global order is in retreat. The idea that nations should decide their own fate is back in style. The question is, will Right wing populism be able to bring back sovereignty and order? Has the slide into runaway immigration gone on for too long? Can America claw back cities like Dearborn, MI and Minneapolis, MN from Muslim control? Whoever decided to turn these places into Mogadishu in the heartland should be thrown out of the country. Or at the very least, be forced live there and have their kids attend school under Sharia norms.

Disastrous History

Mass immigration will turn out to be the biggest disaster of the 21^st century. Immigration as an idea isn’t a terrible thing for a country, but without assimilation it will be a problem. I’d be in favor of a moratorium for 20 years on all immigration. This of course, while deporting those here illegally on a scale that dwarfs the recent waves of people coming in. There was a time when I would be worried about being thought of as cruel toward immigrants. After all, America has seen large groups of immigrants arrive since the early 1800s, why pull up the drawbridge for newbies?

Because we’ve been conned. The tech bros in Silicon Valley pretend that their special kind of talent can only be found in the Asian continent. They get H-1B visas for a lot of their technical help instead of hiring Americans. It’s a con, because they don’t have to pay them as much or keep them as long. Some companies will offshore the jobs connected to the visas. Why don’t Americans have the supposed skill anyway? We spend more on post-secondary school than most countries in the world, by an order of magnitude. We have around 350 million people in this country. H-1B visas are a cost saving measure for the tech industry and nothing more.

Another way we’ve been conned on visas, is believing that Americans won’t do certain jobs. I’m sympathetic to this argument to a degree. Certain industries, lawn care, construction, agriculture are labor intensive and don’t pay well at the bottom level. When unemployment pays better than cutting grass, people find ways to get fired. Add in SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) fraud and you’ve just eliminated 2 very big expenses for your family. Employers are rightly put off by all the lazy Americans.

 But only with alternatives can it be said that Americans won’t do a job. Employers can say a person won’t work if there is another who will work for less. It’s not a real choice. If no second person existed to give the work to, you’d have to make accommodations with the first one. Illegal immigration changes the calculation by introducing a second person. And when you start to add other industries (trucking, restaurant and hotels) Americans get pushed out of everything except retail and marketing.

This is a two part problem requiring curbs on both immigration and unemployment. The goal is to get Americans off the dole and into the labor market. The Trump administration has gone after illegal immigration and continues to deport in large numbers. The next phase is to cut into the wasteful unemployment system and get people working again. This is much tougher because it requires getting reps to vote for less money. 

Conclusion

The monarchies in Europe thought their control would only increase before World War I, but after 1918 most were gone, replaced by republics or revolutions. Since Word War II we’ve seen a global order run by international institutions and dollar dominance. But populism is on the rise, as is nationalism. The excessive movement of people across borders has displaced native workers and caused resentment among citizens. The best case scenario is for politicians to take up the cause of their voters, both in America and Europe. Globalists want unchecked immigration; populists want enforcement of laws. No one wants revolution or civil war. In 10 years the world will look very different. 

 

Justice Run 2025: Half Marathon Version

 

A Race For Everyone: Justice Run Fun

Running is becoming a family affair. Last weekend was the 4^th time I’ve completed a race at the Justice Run. This time it was only a half marathon. The full seemed a little out of reach for where my training is this year. That turned out to be the best option after all. I finished just over 2 hours and 16 minutes. Slower than I’d like, but at least I finished running the whole way. I’m starting to set my expectations a little lower on some of these summer runs. I know it’s not summer, but the heat hasn’t relented enough for me to feel like keeping a quick pace. I tried to eat a little more in hopes that my energy levels wouldn’t dip so much. I’m not sure how much it helped, but I’m in a phase right now where I’m trying different things.

Recovery Tools

For the second time after a race, I got a vitamin cocktail IV at one of the booths. It’s perfect for quick recovery. For whatever reason I get very wiped out during these races and nothing feels better than a full bag of nutrients right into the blood stream. I was getting chills sitting there in the chair. The IV bag is quite cold apparently. They offered me a blanket and I declined. Not because I wasn’t cold, but because I thought I looked pathetic enough on a chair with an IV bag dripping into my veins. I wasn’t interested in looking even more like a hospital patient.

Instead I shivered--like a man!

While the color started to return to my face and recovered, the 5K run began. That’s important because my nephew and 2 nieces ran their first race along with another family (the houses) we know well. My brother and me and my mom all walked over near the finish line to cheer them on. At this point I was full of energy and happy to be on the other side. Emily managed to cross the finish line first. That took us all by surprise because she is the youngest. The rest of the kids passed the line about 5 minutes apart. Bella first and then Christian. All of them had a great experience and can’t wait to do it again. We talked about doing a Turkey Trot at Thanksgiving since they’ll all be here. I’m not sure if this will come off but I do hope so. Turkey day has a way of making people relax and watch football instead.

The seeds of running were planted.

Habitual Tools

There is something about listening to people cheer as you cross the finish line that keeps you coming back. You get a medal and a tee shirt to remember the day. You start to learn how fast you can run and still maintain a constant pace. The more races you do, the more you learn. It’s fun to strategize and improve. Mostly it’s good for you and builds habits that can last a lifetime. Later that evening we had steaks on the grill, another tradition that we all look forward to.

I was happy the race wasn’t rained out. Two years ago it rained heavily the night before and washed out the running trails. The organizers pushed the start time back a few hours hoping for a little more light and little less water on the track. It worked out despite the later start. The first 30 minutes were sloppy but the water drained off enough to make it passable. This year it looked to be a repeat of that. Friday night brought monsoon level rain to Fort Worth. Flash flooding was a problem that night across the region. Fortunately, it didn’t stop the race. Pooling water wasn’t a problem on the path either. The worst part was probably the humidity it brought with it. Living in the south means getting used to the heat though.

Conclusion

But it's finally on the way out. Colder temps are on the way and despite being uncomfortable in the early part of the race, it allows me to go longer. I realize that I write a lot about the weather in these running blog posts. But it plays such an important part in how my body performs that I always feel the need to mention it. The goal is to learn to run despite the conditions. In that regard, I’ve got a way to go.