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Is anyone among you sick? 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 will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

We pray. Does it make a difference? Absolutely! How prayer works itself out in that we pray to an all-knowing all-powerful sovereign God is something not so easy to work out, but the fact that prayer does work is not in question. The Bible tells us so. Even our physical ailments are a matter of prayer for the church. We are commanded to pray for one another. Here’s the thing, though the Bible does promise us healing, God doesn’t promise us when… except for the resurrection. See, the mature leaders of the church can come together and pray for your healing, and it might not come, you may even die… but that doesn’t mean you won’t be healed. Death is never the end of the story for the Believer. Your sins have been forgiven, so you will be raised imperishable! One day, all of our bodies will be like Jesus’. One day, we will all be healed of everything, including our sin. God will raise you up… until then, we pray.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Should we make plans? Yes, we should, it tells us right there “you ought to say.” We make plans, but we trust the Lord. You shouldn’t live your life being tossed back and forth, you need goals, you need direction. This is the right thing to do. So, now we know. Sin is not just what we do, it’s also not doing the right thing. Sin is very tricky… that’s why we can never master it. Trust in the Lord.

And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

Be careful what you say. Once you let the words out of your mouth, you cannot get them back. Your tongue is like a bridle, it sets the course of your life. What you say is what people think about you. It is like the rudder of a ship, whatever you say charts the course of where you will go. It is like a tiny little spark, a careless word spoken in pride or anger can destroy hundreds of lives. Don’t trust yourself to be cleaver, when in doubt don’t say it… this applies to social media too.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

How many people think they know Jesus because they prayed a prayer once, but to look at their life today, though they might be a seemingly “good person” on the outside, God doesn’t make much of a difference in their life day-to-day? Sadly, this might be the state of the majority of people who call themselves “Christian” in the West today. Can you be a Christian without spending time in prayer? Can you follow Jesus without gathering with His body, the church? Can you say you genuinely believe if you don’t really know what the Bible says relating to issues of the day? Following Jesus isn’t a great mystery, it’s just something we have to genuinely do, not just something we say. Love is something we do.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Do you want to be wise? Ask. As you ask, genuinely seek to learn the truth. Don’t just say to God “I need to know what to do…” and then don’t even crack open the Bible. The answers are there, be honest about that. Don’t remain willfully ignorant of what the Bible says on a topic just because you think you might not like what He says. Don’t doubt God, or at least, when you do, learn to trust His word.