Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

and fasted and prayed day and night. She apparently went homeless, sleepless
and foodless apart from the bare necessities of life in these three areas (Lk.
2:37). Her prayer life had a well-defined purpose. As possibly one of the very
few she knew that without a Redeemer Israel found itself in a dead-end street.
Humanly speaking she was wearing herself out for a Redeemer. No wonder
that she sought her God without any substantial interruption and upon his arrival
could not but shout it from the rooftops (Lk. 2:38). While Anna appears
to excel in personal prayer, concerted prayer in small groups is recorded and
recommended in Scripture as well (Mt. 18:19-20; Acts 13:1-2). When coals
in a fire-hearth are grouped together, the intensity and effectiveness of the fire
is immediately multiplied. This should encourage all Christians to take out
membership in one or more small groups that are devoted to accountability
and prayer. In James 5 this ends up into a priority in the author’s agenda.
Of course, both personal and communal prayer should be a love-feast. In
terms of the definition of love earlier in this Commentary, “Love runs out
upon the feet of desire (to experience the union with God), and rests in the
bosom of delight (of the communion with God).” The thirst in desire gets us
going. The satisfaction of delight keeps us coming. But there is more. It
also should be a love-feast in a holiness atmosphere. It has already been emphasized
that only pure hearts and holy lives are “fit to deal with a holy God.”
Without pure hearts and holy lives we cannot endure his presence (1 John
1:4; 3:20). Neither can he endure us without these (Lev. 10:3; Ps. 24:3-4; Mt.
5:8; Heb. 10:22) (See Manton, 368, for both aspects).
When a man turns to God in obedience, and is careful to pursue communion
with Him, God will turn to man in mercy and fellowship (Hos. 14:1-
9; Lk. 15:18). In other words, “the way to have God to turn to us in mercy is
to turn to him in duty” (Manton, 370). This is the divinely ordained and
stipulated way (Ps. 145:18). Both aspects are two inseparable and complementary
sides of one coin, and found throughout Scripture (2 Chron. 15:2;
Zech. 1:3; Mal. 3:7). Man’s turn is not a cause to an effect, but certainly the
means to an end. The Christian often experiences his impotence to turn to
God. He realizes, then, afresh that even his turning to God is a gift and a
miracle of grace. Hence, he will pray as Jeremiah did, “Turn me, and I shall
be turned; for you are the Lord my God” (Jer. 31:18), encouraged to do so by
the promise that the Lord already answers before man calls (Is. 65:24).
As has been emphasized before, the combination of the 100% man and
the 100% God simply does not fit in the human mind. Still they occur simultaneously.
Therefore James can present his readers with a solemn summons.
This is an evangelical command, because for God’s elect it carries its own
blessing with it that will be conveyed through the stirring agency of the Holy
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