Most of us treat prayer like the five-year old. One mother writes, “As my five year old son and I were headed to McDonald’s one day, we passed a car accident. Usually when we see something terrible like that, we say a prayer for those who might be hurt, so I pointed and said to my son, “We should pray.”
From the back seat I heard his earnest request: “Please, God, don’t let those cars block the entrance to McDonald’s.”
1. The Prayers of the Righteous are Expected
We are commanded to pray. We are to ask others to pray for us. We are to pray with others and bring them back to God.
And God hears all prayer. This verse says – the prayers of the righteous are effective and I would like to say that the opposite is also true – the prayers of the unrighteous are ineffective. But I did not say that God does not hear them. God, by his very nature, hears all prayer. And all prayers to God are good. They indicate at some level an acknowledgement of God and who he is.
In the Psalms or Proverbs it says that “if I regard iniquity in my heart, God will not hear me.” But regarding iniquity in my heart indicates a rebelling, a turning away, a holding on to one certain part of my life and refusing to let God have access to it. And you cannot do that, and be able to turn to God in any kind of prayer and expect him to answer. But someone who is away from God, who prays to God for miracles, for a job, for help, for family members who are grieving, and the list goes on – God hears, and many times answers those prayers in his mercy thru prevenient grace.
The Christian’s most powerful resource is communion with God through prayer. The results are often greater than we thought were possible. Some people see prayer as a last resort to be tried when all else fails. This approach is backward. Prayer should come first. Because God’s power is infinitely greater than ours, it only makes sense to rely on it — especially because God encourages us to do so. —Life Application Bible Notes; Bible Explorer 4
2. The Prayers of the Righteous are Effective
But we need to return to what this verse is really saying – that the prayers of someone who is righteous have great effectiveness with God. God many times will “change his plans” or will be persuaded to come to the aid of the prevailing prayer of a righteous person.
You see, we usually pray according to the desires of our heart – and for a truly righteous person – I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. God has changed our heart, but we always should pray according to his will. The righteous person by very definition is wholly conformed to the will of God in his thoughts, feelings and actions. Righteous people live by love, are submitted to God’s will in all things, have a close relationship with God, are familiar with the ways of God, talk with him constantly, and their daily life shows evidence of this.
But I want to be careful here not to imply that if our prayers don’t “work” that is must be because it is not God’s will. Wait, do you mean you equate your ineffective prayer with the will of God? No, far too often, our prayers are ineffective for a number of reasons. We pray for things according to our own desires, we pray for the wrong things…
Scriptures indicate that the prayers of the righteous…
Are a delight to the Lord – Proverbs 15:8
Have strength and ability to prevail James 5
Are listened to by God Psalms 145:19 & 34:15
Have changed the weather, the patterns of the sun, Joshua 10 & I Samuel 12
Have extended life and raised people from death, I Kings 4, 17 & II Kings 20
Have delayed judgment Genesis 18
Have opened the wombs of the childless Genesis 20
Have revealed secrets and mysteries Daniel 2 & 9
Prayer changes the course of events, things and me.
3. The Prayers of the Righteous are Eternal
"The prayer offered in faith" does not refer to the faith of the sick person, but to the faith of the people praying. God heals, faith doesn’t, and all prayers are subject to God’s will. But our prayers are part of God’s healing process. That is why God often waits for our prayers of faith before intervening to heal a person. —Life Application Bible Notes
Physical healing is always connected with the condition of the soul. And if we pray for healing for someone else or for ourselves, we should always be willing to accept God’s intentions for our hearts and souls.
There is a direct connection in this passage between sins confessed and sins forgiven to physical salvation. The writer ties eternal salvation from damnation and corruption with salvation from physical destruction, weariness, weakness and disease.
Christ has made it possible for us to go directly to God for forgiveness. But confessing our sins to each other still has an important place in the life of the church.
(1) If we have sinned against an individual, we must ask him or her to forgive us. Mathew 18:15
(2) If our sin has affected the church, we must confess it publicly.
(3) If, after confessing a private sin to God, we still struggle with that sin on a regular basis, we must confess that sin to a true fellow believer in order for wholeness to come into our life.
The prayer of faith is a prayer that trusts God with the outcome. It is the deep belief that no matter what, God will do good and everything is according to his plan. Sometimes all we can see is the physical, those things right in front of our eyes. We see the cancer, the loss of the hair, the scars, the crippling effects of illness and disease. But we too often forget that healing and salvation have an eternal aspect. There is a spiritual dimension to our physical, and God may desire to heal in that dimension and leave us with the physical so that we continue to lean on him.
Many times people come face-to-face with unexpected bad news, and because they tend to think more physically than spiritually, they begin to doubt God. They start thinking about how can God be a God of love and let this happen? Those thoughts are not by accident – the enemy of our soul makes sure that we have those kinds of thoughts. But if we could only see that God, who designed us for him and for eternity, really desires to work in our life his will, we would be far more trusting with our bodies and with our loved ones.
No, God may not cause bad things to happen to people. Because he loves us so much, he has set in motion the ability for people to make choices outside of what he desires. We can do things, go places, and eat items that affect not only us but our families and our friends, and sometimes disaster occurs.
But God does have the power to take any circumstance, any event, or any disease and work it around until his name is honored in our life. And that can only happen as we place our complete trust in him.
In Revelations 5 we read of the golden bowls of incense, “which are the prayers of the saints” indicating that our prayers for each other, especially those prayers for redemption and forgiveness, will be forever before God as a fragrant incense offering. Clearly, the prayers of the righteous are eternal.
Conclusion:
This passage clearly says that the effectiveness of our prayers is directly connected to what we say, how we live and the relationships in the community of faith. God expects us to talk with him first and foremost. The Bible indicates over and over again that the prayer offered in faith by a righteous person has great power with God, and we need to know that when we pray with someone, even if they think it is only physical in nature, that prayer has eternal repercussions. Prayer is expected, effective and eternal.
But learning to pray effectively takes time. You cannot expect to get to know God by just talking to him every now and again. Nor can you expect your prayers to have much weight with God if you are a “Sunday Morning Christian.” We must invest ourselves in the relationship, because he promised if we would draw near to him, he would draw near to us.
