Erasmus Makarimayi WE are not all saved or born again at the same time. Furthermore, we don’t spiritually grow at the same rate. After birth, some are aggressive; they read and study their Bibles and never miss church services and programmes. Then there are those who take the fact that they are new creation lightly. Apostle Paul calls them carnal or sense knowledge believers. To such people, James wrote his epistle. Apostle Peter wrote something to them. To encourage them, there had to be a message especially for them.
Instead of prayer to be healed, they need oil which they can feel. Let’s hear the words of James 5:14-15: “(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.”
There are no believers who received a less powerful Saviour. The issue is to what extent do you want to dig into the precise, exact, full and complete knowledge.
Whereas Apostle Peter teaches the past tense spiritual reality, the carnal mind yearns for the basics. 1 Peter 2:24, New King James, teaches: “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness — by whose stripes you were healed.” We’re not asking for possible healing but the manifestation of divine healing and health. We are enforcing what the finished work of Christ Jesus offered. We need to act upon the word. So we see that James is talking to those who are walking by sight, by feeling, by what they hear. They are walking in the realm of the senses.
Believers need to grow beyond the audience of Apostle James. Sense knowledge believers have to have the elders come and pray for them. They must hear the elders’ prayer. They must feel the elders’ hands upon their brow, then they believe. They are still seeking for wisdom which dwells in them. James 1:5-8 admonish, “(5) If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (6) But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. (7) For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. (8) A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
It’s very clear that he’s not talking to a believer who has entered into his inheritance. This does not match up with Ephesians 1:3, “(3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:” This Scripture shows us the believer who has entered into all his privileges, walking in all the fulness of the wisdom of Christ. This one to whom James refers is walking in sense knowledge. Her/his faith ebbs and flows. The babe in Christ is not overlooked. She/he is yet carnal; that is, she/he is ruled by the senses, she/he walks as a common woman/man. The world pleasures have to satisfy her/him, she/he has not yet reached a place where she/he is satisfied with the Lord. In great grace, the Lord says to her/him: “If any of you lack wisdom …”
I would that all could understand this. Wisdom belongs to the believer. It is not a problem of faith. It is one who is living as though she/he were out of Christ that lacks wisdom; and having no sense of righteousness, no sense of his relationship, she/he is driven now[…]” “by she/his great need to pray for wisdom.
She/He is trying to exercise faith for this wisdom. She/He does not know that all that Christ did belongs to her/him. What belongs to her/him requires no faith to enjoy. Not knowing that the riches of grace are hers/his, and that she/he is blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, she/he comes in her/his simplicity of” “ignorance and prays for faith.
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We always need faith when we pray for something that does not belong to us, and we are not sure of getting it; but we do not need faith for a thing that we already possess, something that already belongs to us. Let the babe still pray for faith, but you who are mature do not need to, for Jesus is your faith.
He was made unto you faith. It is so important that the heart grasp this clearly, for wisdom belongs to you as much as Jesus belongs to you, as much as His intercession belongs to you. Jesus’ intercession belongs to you.” Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. Grace and peace be multiplied to you through knowledge.
