Let Us Pray

A couple weeks ago Lisa, our children’s director at church, asked me to coordinate the prayer effort for Vacation Bible School this summer. I had done it last year, and I am devoted to prayer in my personal walk, and I’m the pastor’s wife. It made sense that she should ask me. But in light of recent events, I felt unqualified, unworthy, and powerless to lead this venture. I didn’t get back to her right away, because I didn’t want to disappoint her by saying no. But then of course she asked me again, and I had to seriously pray to God for guidance about what His will was in all of it. He led me to the following verses.

James 5:16-17 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain and the earth produced its crops.”

At first, thinking about this verse confirmed my hesitancy. I looked back at last year’s VBS and remembered that my prayer crusade could hardly be compared to Elijah's great triumph. I could only get two couples to commit to pray on site. Not a single child made a profession of faith all week. Some of the workers’ kids got sick. In my own mind, my prayer effort was not hugely successful. Now I was in a place in my spiritual life where my own weakness and powerlessness were at a peak. Besetting, habitual sins of the flesh were crippling me, making me feel less righteous than ever. But then God graciously began His gentle work in my life, allowing me to understand this verse like never before.

Read it again. “The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” Whose prayers make a difference? In the final analysis, God works powerfully through the prayers of the righteous. So I had to ask the question. Who are the righteous? They are not simply those who follow the rules. Jesus had a lot of critical things to say to the religious leaders who attempted to keep the law to obtain their righteousness. The Apostle Paul, who by his own admission was, “as for legalistic righteousness, faultless”, said he did not want a righteousness that came from the law, but a righteousness that came from God and was by faith. The imputed righteousness of Christ, transferred to his account, was the righteousness that Paul wanted. He declared that his own righteousness was like dirty rags compared to the perfect righteousness of Christ. So the righteous man is simply the one who takes on Christ’s righteousness by faith. Check. I am righteous – in Christ alone.

So now, in Christ, I qualified as righteous, according to scripture. My next question was, “What kind of prayers does God empower?” James indicates these prayer are effectual prayers. What on earth is an effectual prayer? The dictionary defines effectual as “adequate, sufficient to produce a desired effect”. So God send me back to scripture to find out what characterizes adequate prayers. This of course led me to the model, The Lord’s Prayer. What a treasure house! It reads, “Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be Your Name”. Effectual prayers commence with worship, contemplating the character and attributes of God. Just as the Israelites came into God's temple gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise, we are to enter His gates - God’s presence - with gratitude, and His courts declaring His worthiness.

We read (and pray) "Our Father." Effectual prayers acknowledge that God is our Father. Only believers, those who have received the salvation that only Christ provides by faith in His substitutionary death on the cross, who have been adopted into the family of God, have the right to enter boldly into the Throne room of this Father. Jesus told us that if a child asks his father for bread, he will not give him a stone. When he asks for a fish, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? No, fathers want to give good gifts to their children. When we come as beloved children, our trust in Father God’s answers begins to develop strength.

Next we read, "Who is in heaven." And so we pray not to a god we conjure up. We pray to the one true God who is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. Who lives in heaven, unseen. Who is over all, blessed forever, Amen.

Then we pray, "Holy is Your Name." We come with a heart to worship and adore Him for who He is. By acknowledging His holiness we see Him as set apart and thoroughly different from us. By acknowledging the brilliant perfection of His nature, our sins are more heinous and even our own pitiful attempts at righteousness take on the glory of sludge next to newly fallen snow.

After this, God calls us next to regard Him as sovereign over all and to submit to His authority as we declare, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Of course, His will cannot be thwarted, and it doesn’t matter in the long run whether or not I agree with it or vote for it. It shall be done. But this part of the prayer gives me the opportunity to join with Him in asking for it to be so. And this is where I begin to change, before I confess my sins, before I ask for anything. We all know what it is like to fight against the known will of God, either in our youth or (for me, at least) this morning. Even Jesus was tempted to want something outside the inevitable, when He prayed in the Garden, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.” But here we can say as He did, “Not my will, but Yours be done.”

Now we are ready to ask God, "Give us this day our daily bread." We are never guided by scripture to ask for more than we need. God will not grant the prayers we pray out of selfishness. “You want something and do not get it because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. “ (James 4) As we check our motives, asking for only those things that will sustain our lives and enable us to do ministry better, we learn contentment. But oddly, to the man or woman who finds favor with God, He often grants more than what is needed. Paul learned to be content in any and every circumstance. But due to the grace of God he “knew what it was like to have plenty" as well.

And then He moves into confession. "Forgive us our debts…" God is asking us to come to Him with all we owe and lay it at His feet, mainly because He is the only one rich enough in mercy to forgive our great debt. Proverbs tells us, “He who conceals his sin will not prosper. But whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” There is a certain distance God keeps from those who harbor sin in their heart. When we harbor idols of the heart, when we live in habitual sin, we are in danger of shutting the Lord’s ears to our prayers. Men who will not be sensitive to their wives are told that their behavior “hinders their prayers.” Other things hinder our prayers too. Self-righteousness pride can close the ears of God. When the Pharisee and the tax collector both showed up in church on the same day, Jesus told the people that God heard the prayers of the humble tax collector, who cried out, “God be merciful to me, a sinner” but He rejected the self-promoting prayers of the Pharisee. “Although the Lord is exalted, He regards the lowly, but the proud He knows from afar. “

How should we expect God to forgive us? "...As we forgive our debtors." The James 5 passage precludes Elijah’s powerful prayers with this admonishment, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed.” So we are roundabout saying, “God I am counting on You to forgive me and not count my sin against me, just like I forgave so-and-so and no longer count their sin against them." The parable of the unforgiving servant makes this clear. We must forgive, or our prayers will be hindered, if not shut out completely.

Effectual prayers are aware of the warfare involved. They are prayed by soldiers who are dressed and ready for battle. Warriors who are sober, alert, and aware of a hungry lion-like adversary who would eat us alive if given the chance. He’s just as happy to intimidate us, even while we are praying. This is why Jesus urges us to beg God, “Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” As we pray deliverance, dressed in full armor (see Ephesians 6), we are able to stand. And we watch the flaming arrows of the enemy of our souls fall at our feet.

The Lord’s Prayer concludes with a second acknowledgment of God’s eternal kingdom, power, and glory. "For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen." These are effectual prayers aligned with God’s guidelines.

The James 5 passage says that Elijah was a man “just like us, and he prayed earnestly.” Now we are all thinking by now, “Elijah and I have little in common. He was a prophet. He was called by God – more like an ultra-spiritual missionary. He witnessed the miraculous – several times.” Yet, God seems to think that deep down he was “just like us.” What made the difference? We’ve already concluded what effectual prayers look like. But Elijah knew how to pray fervently. What about fervent prayers? The Lord tells us to “keep on praying and not give up”, and that He rewards the persistent pray-er. He tells us we should pray “without ceasing”. He advises, “He who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” He promises, “Keep on asking, and it will be given to you. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and it will be opened to you.” Fervent prayer is intense, full of faith, believing, and persistent. It is expectant, and does not doubt the answer. It trusts God’s timing, but it displays an active sort of waiting. God answers effectual praying and fervent praying.

But as God guided me through these scriptural gymnastics, He stumped me with the next point. It is this. Even after getting our hearts and minds straight, Romans 8 tells us we still don’t know how to pray as we should. Not one word from our mouths reaches the ears of the Father unless it undergoes divine translation. The Holy Spirit, who “searches the hearts and knows what the mind of the spirit is, intercedes on our behalf with groanings too deep for words.” Have you ever spoke through an interpreter? I recall giving a message to a group of 50 African women when I traveled to Kenya a few years ago. One of the older women in the church, who also spoke English, would take what I’d say and communicate it the women in their native language and dialect. But I would say one line, and my translator would give the ladies a paragraph! She knew how to communicate what was on my heart, and then some, to her friends. In the same way, the Holy Spirit speaks volumes when I can only utter a little. What a comfort it is to know this! I may be able to verbalize just a line, a word, or a cry of anguish, when in the attitude of prayer. But the Spirit, so in tune to my heart, translates my every word, thought, and desire to my Father, who is eager to hear what is on my heart, and intercede for me “according to the will of God.”

Why pray? Because through prayer I get to know Jesus better. Because we are commanded to. Because through prayer we are powerful and effective for the kingdom of God. Elijah prayed, and it didn’t rain for three years. He prayed again, and it rained. As a result of prayer, Jesus said we could move mountains. James said that when we pray the sick will be made well. Peter was miraculously released from prison while his friends were praying. Paul expected to more boldly share the gospel (evangelize the lost) after his friends in Ephesus prayed. Things change. People change. WE change when we pray. Of course, I know that many of us are in conversation with Jesus all day long. But there is something powerful about the intensity of a time set aside for fervent prayer, both individually and corporately.

So, to conclude, I said, "yes" to Lisa. Not because I'm any more worthy today than when she asked me a month ago to lead the VBS prayer team. But because God has given me a new perspective on prayer, on how to prepare myself and others, as we seek to please God. The specific answers to our prayers are up to God, but this promise of being effective motivates me to pursue prayer even more. Will you join me? Let's see what God does!

For the Sake of the Living One,

Jacqui