Conditions to Prayer

Good morning.

We concluded our previous message by quoting James 5:14-16: “¹³Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. ¹⁴Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. ¹⁶Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” It follows on with: “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,” (James 5:17-18).

I wrote a series called “Get to know God through Elijah”, which could be found in this blog’s archive from 9^th to 19^th of March 2012, in which we can see how ordinary Elijah was. He was however totally dedicated to the Lord, which was the power behind His prayers, and had an awareness of who he actually was in the Lord.

This passage from the book of James shows us that, whatever we need, we should pray. If we look at it carefully we notice some important conditions to our prayers being answered, in other words what is required if we really desire guaranteed answers to prayer. Verse fifteen states that prayer offered by faith will be answered, and verse sixteen states that if we confess our sins we will be healed. The second part of verse sixteen is quite powerfully translated in the Amplified Bible: “The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].” In this translation we notice two significant conditions to prayer. The person who prays must be righteous, in other words clean and holy before the Lord in thoughts and actions, and the prayer must be heartfelt and continuous. The word ‘heartfelt’ points to us really meaning it from a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17), in other words not just a doing of our duty, and continuous means to pray until we receive.

I have been blessed by George Muller’s life story. After the Lord had saved his soul from a wicked life as a young man, the first sign of his salvation was complete righteousness. He would not do anything unrighteous on purpose. I have read his biography, but then I recently stumbled onto the following which I would like to quote.

George Muller was a man of incredible faith and prayer. He supported, educated, and led to Christ thousands of children in his orphanages in Bristol, England. Yet despite the vast scope of his ministry, Muller never asked anyone for money. He told those who wanted to know how they could help to ask God, as he had already taken his needs before the Lord. Over his life the equivalent of what would today be millions of pounds came in to provide all that the work needed.

Muller prayed for more than fifty years for the salvation of two of his friends from his wicked youth. One friend was saved just before Muller's death, the other shortly after. Muller wrote, “The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer; they do not go on praying; they do not persevere. If they desire anything for God's glory, they should pray until they get it.”

Muller died a poor man in terms of worldly standards, yet millions of pounds were entrusted to him to provide for the work the Lord had called him to do. His life is a lovely example of the passage under discussion – one of righteousness and heartfelt, continuous prayer. I have recently learnt how much the Lord desires righteousness and honour to be our portion. The world looks at us and judges the Lord by what they see in us. If our prayers are not answered we should look to our lives and ask ourselves what we are doing to hinder them (Isaiah 59:1-2 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah%2059:1-2&version=NIV1984). In Christ there is no room for compromise, such as for example serving self and Mammon.

Lord, I want to pray heartfelt and continuous prayers as a righteous person.

Thank you Lord that your Word went out from your mouth, via your servant’s pen, and it will not return to you empty, but will accomplish what you desire and achieve the purpose for which you sent it.

Please pass this on if you think others may benefit by it.