Power Of Prayer: Doers Of The Word Series

I’ve Been thinking of the Power of Prayer this week. Then on Thursday evening, we had more than a hundred and fifty persons gather in Lake City in the Dr. Ronald McNair Park to say goodbye to an officer killed in the line of duty. It gave me new perspectives on the Power and need of Prayer. We think prayer is something we know about. But do we? There are many who hear the common “sending our thoughts and prayers” and believe that it is a way of avoiding taking a stand and making the changes that need to be made. There are many that say and hear I’m praying for you as idol religious chatter. How do we redeem the idea of prayer from those who have presented it as ineffectual and easy? How do we pray with purpose and power?

James doesn’t believe prayer is ineffectual. This epistle of doing, of putting your faith to work in the world, of living out salvation in ways that impact the world around you, also believes that prayer is a power we need to use.

The whole Letter of James exhorts the community in confidence that this wisdom has the ability to shape that community in practical acts of love and mercy. Now, at the book's conclusion, the importance and the power of prayer are persistently and persuasively accented as the final exhortation. Part of our being Doers of the Word is to Pray with Power.

So, one's words and prayers should be carefully chosen. Let a "Yes" be yes and a "No" be no.

If any are suffering, pray for healing.

If any are happy, pray in songs of praise.

If any are sick, pray in confidence that the Lord will heal.

If any have done wrong, pray in confidence that God will forgive.

All of this is to be exercised in the context of a community in which mutual prayer is the bond that creates, sustains, and restores that community.

James was adamant about prayer in all circumstances. We should pray. Pray with the sighs of our hearts; pray with the songs of our souls. We should pray.

And pray together, call on help when our own prayers seem to be bouncing against the ceiling, lost in the clouds above our heads.

We liked that there are tools to help in our praying. We can pray with our hands, laying them on those for whom we pray.

We can pray with the oil of anointing, not because that makes the prayer better, lubricates the prayer machinery somehow, but simply because it gives us something to grab hold of as we pray. It gives us something to do with our hands.

We found James helpful for our praying. Mostly. Sort of. So today hopefully we can wrestle with how to pray.

Have you ever thought about being a news reporter?

One of my best friends is a news reporter and I can always count on Mrs. Tonya Brown Brown even in her two am tweets marketing sure she provides the basics of the five W’s.

Did you know that the people who write those News stories have a special way of deciding how to write their story? To make sure that the facts of the story are complete, a good reporter makes sure that the article answers five important questions.

Those five questions are: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. When you read a story, it is good for us to ask ourselves those same questions to help us fully understand the story. Especially these days in the current News Cycle.

I do a lot of flyers these days when sister Hooker or I work on a flyer we always try and make sure the information on the flyers covers the five W’s.

Well, today I want to suggest that as we see in James 5: 13-16, teaching about prayer that it should also contain the five W’s, let’s see if we can answer the who, what, when, where, and why questions about the power of prayer.

•1 The Who should pray? Everyone. These verses tell us that everyone who needs God’s help or everyone who has received God’s blessing should pray — and that is all of us.

•2 What should we pray about? Everything. We should pray for healing when we are sick and for forgiveness from sin. We should offer prayers of thanks when we are happy, and ask for help in times of trouble.

•3 The When should we pray? All the time. If we should pray when we are in trouble, when we are sick, when we are happy, or when we have sinned, that is just about all the time, isn’t it?

•4 The Where should we pray? Everywhere. These verses don’t come right out and tell us where we should pray, but I figured it out. If we should pray all the time and any time we need God’s help, then I guess it just makes sense that we should pray everywhere we are because wherever we are, God is there. Yes, in the closet, in the schoolhouse, in the grocery store in the car on the way to the doctor in the hospital room.