James 5:16 The effective prayer of a righteous man can
accomplish much. NASU
Prayer can
seem to be a mystery to us. We know that God is sovereign so we wonder why
should we even bother praying. We are not going to change His mind are we? He
is always going to do what He chooses to do, right? If that is the case, why
bother asking? Besides, even when I do ask, I don’t see an answer to my prayer
anyway.
If you look
at this verse in James, he would beg to differ with that type of thinking. In
fact, just before the key verse, James tells his readers to call for the elders
to pray for those who are sick. He says to confess our sins to each other and
pray for healing. In verse 13 he says that if anyone is suffering, let him
pray. Evidently, James believes that not only should we pray, but that our prayers bring results!
Let’s look closely at verse 16. James says the
prayer of a righteous man (or woman) can accomplish much. He prefaces that with
the phrase, “effective prayer.” What
does that mean? The word here in Greek for effective is energeo. It is defined as “to be active” or “efficient.” It is
where we get the word energy or energized. The NIV puts it this way, “The
prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
So we need
to know, who is considered righteous? Simple, one who has put their trust in
Christ. His righteousness has been given to us in an exchange at the cross. He
took the penalty of our sin upon Himself and placed His righteousness upon us.
When we pray to the Father, He considers us as righteous because of His Son
and thus, hears our prayer.
Lastly,
James says that these prayers accomplish
much. The Greek scholar, AT Robertson says that this could be rendered, "has
much force." Think about that. It may not be that our prayer will accomplish
exactly what we wanted, but that
does not mean it does not have force or power. It just may not have been exactly what God wanted. But sometimes, God, in His foreknowledge, has an event planned out to match the exact timing
and nature of our prayer and then we get to watch what He does. We get to
participate in accomplishing God’s will. How amazing that is!
James gives
us an example of this in verses 17 and 18. He says that Elijah, a man just like us, not more holy or more spiritual,
called for a halt to rain and the rain stopped. It stopped for 3 ½ years! Then
he prayed for it to rain and it did. His prayer evidently had “much force.”
Jesus
taught us that anything we would ask in His name (which means in His will), He
would give to us (Jn 14:13,15:16). The key for us in asking for anything in
prayer, is to first seek God’s will. We want our hearts to be aligned with His.
That means asking Him each day, to lead and guide us in our prayer life by the
power of the Holy Spirit. It means that we lay aside our fleshly desires and
ask Him to place His desires in us. When that
happens, we will see that our prayers are
effective, that they will accomplish
much because what we are asking for, is what He wants!
The apostle
Paul tell us that we ought to pray constantly
(1Th 5:17). James tells us earlier in his letter, that we should pray believing that we have what we ask for
(1:5-8). Jesus told us over and over again to ask, in faith, for anything in His name. I want to encourage you to continually go the Lord in
prayer. Ask Him to guide your heart,
helping you to pray for His will to be done in every circumstance. If you do,
then your prayers will be the ones
that accomplish much and your faith will grow!
God bless
you
Coach
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