Effective Prayer

November 17

Ezekiel 41-42

Psalm 123

Proverbs 27:19-20

James 5:13-20

Effective Prayer

“Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray.  Is anyone cheerful?  He is to sing praises.  Is anyone among you sick?  Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.  And the prayer offered in faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.  The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” James 5:13-16 LSB

We say we believe in the power of prayer, but do we?  Do we believe that prayer really works?  Do we believe that prayer makes a difference?  Why doesn’t God always answer our prayers in the way and time we want? Does it mean that we aren’t “righteous” enough or that we didn’t pray hard enough?  Why does He heal some people and not others?  These are really tough questions that I don’t presume to have the answers to, but I believe that prayer matters.  I believe that God hears us when we pray and He always answers (Jeremiah 29:12).  We don’t always get what we ask for because God gives us what we need and not what we want.  He is sovereign.  He sees everything going on that I can’t see.  He knows what is happening in the lives of the people around us and He is the only One that can do the best thing in every situation.  The purpose of prayer is not to get God to do a specific thing for us.  The purpose is to talk to God about what is going on.  We can tell Him how we want Him to answer our prayer, but the reason we pray is to talk over our concerns with Him and ask Him to do what is best in the situation.  He knows more than we do, He can see into the future and therefore knows how things are going to turn out, and He loves us and wants what is best for us.  We can leave our problems in His hands and trust that He will answer in the best way.  Sometimes that means that we won’t get what we want.  We might not be able to understand now or even this side of Heaven, but we can trust Him. 

Prayer is one of the ways we get to know our heavenly Father.  Unlike Santa Claus, who we see once a year and sit on his lap to tell him our Christmas wish list, God is available to us all day every day throughout the year.  He wants an intimate relationship with us.  The more time we spend with Him, the more we get to know Him, and the more we trust Him because we are able to experience His lovingkindness and His gentle provision in our lives.  James says that the effective prayer of a righteous man avails much.  This doesn’t mean that we have to be righteous to get our prayers answered.  If we go to God on our own merit, we will never get our prayers answered.  We are only able to approach God because we have been given access by Jesus.  When we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are covered with His righteousness.  We stand righteous because of the blood of Jesus (Ephesians 2:18, Hebrews 10:19-20, Romans 5:2).   Our prayer is effective not because of anything we do, but because our God who we are praying to is powerful, loving and merciful toward us.