James 5:13-18
INTRODUCTION
PRAYER is the means by which those who believe and have faith in the three Persons of the Godhead communicate with them. This communication (or prayer) can be done audibly or silently, depending on how the Holy Spirit gives the lead to the one who prays.
Furthermore, prayers can be offered in the tongues of men or in the tongues of angels, but, again, it all depends on the leading of the Holy Spirit.
See 1 Corinthians 14:15; Romans 8:26-28.
“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
Romans 8:26
Prayer is a deeply spiritual affair which, like any other spiritual matter of the Christian faith, must be done according to the leading of the Holy Spirit; otherwise, the purpose for praying would be defeated. This is more reason why the Christian must ensure that they are walking in the Spirit at all times, and not in the flesh.
“So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”
Romans 8:8-9
It is very important to establish that a person’s prayer life is only effective to the degree of their spiritual life; and by this we mean their understanding and submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit of God.
“And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”
Romans 8:27.
What, though, is the difference between the terms “effective” and “effectual” as they concern prayers? Let’s consider them.
I. Prayer on its own is an effective means of communication with the three Persons of the Godhead; the Christian who prays without fainting (or giving up) will accomplish much with God and His kingdom.
But there is an essential ingredient that makes a person more success-oriented in their prayer life, which is the second thing I want to explain.
II. A Christian is considered effectual in their prayer life when they know how to deploy the necessary spiritual strategy in getting their prayers answered.
It is worthy of note that some Christians (if not the most!) simply offer prayers to God at random without thoughtfully considering the following indices:
A. Whose will is being served in this prayer? Matthew 26:36-39.
B. What’s the right approach to the issue at hand — is it to pray or to take action? Exodus 14:10-16.
C. Are there some scriptural precedents to support the prayer? Nehemiah 1:8-9 (Deuteronomy 4:25-31); Deuteronomy 8:3 (Matthew 4:4); Hebrews 13:5 (Genesis 28:15; Joshua 1:5).
D. Can God, on the one hand, be persuaded to change His mind on the issue being prayed for? (Genesis 18:17-33; Exodus 32:9-14; Psalms 106:21-23), or can He, on the other hand, not be persuaded? (Deuteronomy 3:23-27; Ezekiel 14:12-20; 2 Corinthians 12:7-9).
E. Who gets the glory for the answer to the prayer? Acts 3:12-16; Acts 14:8-18.
The five points above are just some of the indices which Christians must carefully train themselves to know and deploy whenever they pray to God; there are others too, which we shall consider in the later part of this study, specifically when we deal with point 3.
We shall divide the study into (3) points, namely:
1.Why Pray?
2.Some Hindrances To Acceptable Prayer.
3.The Act of Effective and Effectual Prayer.
1.Why Pray?
Luke 18:1-8; Colossians 4:2-4; 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18.
People offer prayer to God because it is taken for granted by all who know and serve Him that the common means of communication with Him is by prayer, just as we can see in Psalms 65:2.
“O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.”
But perhaps the most compelling reason for praying is that God has commanded it; so praying is a duty for all who know and serve God. He expects us to pray all the time because doing so connects us to Him and makes it possible for us to experience His love and involvement in our daily lives. Furthermore, God has also promised to hear and answer us when we pray.
Psalms 50:15:
“And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.”
With all these assurances from the Word of God, we have no reason to refrain from praying. In fact, Jesus Christ Himself was emphatic about this in the parable He gave in Luke 18:1-8.
Verse 1: “And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;”
The emphasis in the scripture above is to “always pray”.
Also in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, we are commanded to “pray without ceasing”, while in Colossians 4:2, we are admonished to “continue in prayer”.
All of the above scriptural references give the believer some valid reasons to pray.
We must understand that the way the spiritual world of God’s Kingdom works is quite different from the way ordinary people think here in the world. For instance, people expect God to interfere in their lives to bless them and to protect them from harm just because He is all-powerful and can do all things. Yes, God is all-powerful and is able to do all things, but, however, that is not how He does things: God respects our decisions (the exercise of our free will) and will most likely intervene for us, without prayer, only in situations where our will is not required, rather than in situations where we need to first exercise our will to request His intervention: this is why we need to always talk to Him in prayers about the things which concern us if we must see His intervention in our affairs all the time.
In Matthew 7:7, Jesus Christ says: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you…”
This means that God’s intervention in our affairs has to be done at our request.
However, we must also bear in mind that, as much as God encourages us to pray for His intervention in our lives, He has also given some conditions that govern our prayers, and He will answer any prayer which meets the condition.
For instance, in James 4:1-3, God’s Word shows us some common mistakes which people make in approaching Him in prayers: any request that is made to God with the wrong motive will not be answered by Him because He does not support unrighteousness even in the faintest sense. So, as God does not interfere with our will, He also expects us to respect His will and to live by it so that whenever we ask anything of Him, our minds will have been already trained to ask it according to His Word of truth by which we live.
In 1 John 3:21-22, the Holy Bible says: “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”
SUMMARY.
In rounding up the first sub-topic of this study series, we need to draw our attention to the essential elements of the study, which are as follows:
i.Prayer is a duty because it is God’s command to all His children.
Jeremiah 33:3
ii.Prayer opens up our lives to feel God’s love and to experience His involvement in our daily affairs.
Psalms 107:4-9.
iii.Knowing God’s Word will help us to live according to His commandments and to pray according to His will.
Psalms 119:1-11.
We have concluded teaching on the first of the three points we have formulated and now must proceed to the second point.
2.Some Hindrances To Acceptable Prayer:
Isaiah 1:15-18.
As important as it is that God commands us to pray always, we must know that it is not all prayers that enjoy His acceptance. This is not because God chooses which prayer to accept or reject, but rather that Satan and his agents of darkness work hard to see to it that some prayers do not get to the throne of God in heaven, let alone be answered.
Satan has deployed so many strategies to hinder Christians from doing the will of Almighty God and, unless we are very careful to watch out for those satanic strategies, we will get hindered by them, not only in the place of prayer but also in other aspects of our daily Christian life. For instance, consider
1 Thessalonians 2:18:
“Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us.”
In the scripture above, Apostle Paul says that Satan hindered them from coming to see and encourage the brethren at Thessalonica.
Also in Psalms 109:5-7, King David described the spiritual state of a wicked person when he attempts to stand in prayer before God, where he wrote as follows:
“…let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.”
We see this happening also with Joshua the high priest in Zechariah 3:1-7.
The first verse specifically says: “And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.”
That’s quite an effrontery! But the question to ask is: what gave Satan that effrontery to confront the high priest right in God’s presence?
Well, we must understand that Satan cherishes his work as an accuser and spoiler of good things for God’s people, so we must not allow him to work against us in the place of prayer.
However, verse three gives the reason why Satan had the boldness to accuse God’s high priest in God’s presence; it says:
“Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel.”
In spiritual matters, a filthy garment signifies a sinful life. So the sinful life of a person will expose them to satanic hindrances at the place of prayer or in other aspects of their Christian life.
See also Revelation 12:10.
If we must overcome Satan, our accuser, at the place of prayer and in our Christian duties, then we must not touch whatever belongs to him and his kingdom. But Satan knows how dependent mankind has become on the polluted things of this world which he invented; that’s why he comes boldly before God to accuse and to condemn them before Him.
See 1 John 2:15-17; 2 Corinthians 6:17-18; 7:1.
If we want to overcome Satan and his agents at the place of prayer, then we must follow the admonition of God’s Word in
1 Peter 2:11, which says: “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.”
In rounding up this part of the study, we must address another subtle area where Satan unleashes his tactics against Christians who have not succumbed to his temptation to fall into the common sins being freely committed in the world. We must be careful to address this area because many prayers of God’s children get hindered due to their ignorance of such subtle satanic strategies.
Let us consider some of those strategies. They are:
i. Lack of faith.
We may not readily know what damage a lack of faith does to a Christian until we know the scriptures that point it out.
See the following:
A. Romans 14:23
“And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”
B. John 3:18
“He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
C. James 1:6-7
“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. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.”
ii. Fear.
Another subtle strategy of Satan is to use fear to hinder Christians from being acceptable before God.
Consider the following scriptures:
A. Matthew 25:24-30.
Verse 25
“And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.”
B. Revelation 21:8
“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”
C. Jeremiah 1:8, 17
“Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD…Thou, therefore, gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.”
iii. Wrong Motives.
Praying with the wrong motive in the heart can render one’s prayers unacceptable before God. See the following scriptures:
A. James 4:3
“Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”
B. Proverbs 14:12
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
C. Matthew 15:7-9.
Verse 8
“This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”
SUMMARY:
We have looked into the various strategies employed by the kingdom of Satan to stop us from praying or, if they failed, to make sure our prayers are hindered from acceptance before God.
We must now, more than ever before, be resolved to win our battles against Satan and his dark kingdom in the place of prayer by doing the following:
A. Keeping ourselves free from sin. 1 John 2:1-6; 3:2-3; 5:18-21;
B. Breaking free from the world and the deceitful things it offers and/or promises.
1 John 2:15-17; James 4:1-4.
C. Breaking free from the damning consequences of lack of faith, fear, and wrong motives in the place of prayer.
To Be Continued.