Pastor Ian shares a word on the ‘Potential for Powerful Prayer’. Reading from James 5: 13-16.
“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
James 5:13-16 ESV
How many of us has said that we have no time for prayer. Because in reality we do but the the amount of time isn’t as important as what we do with it.
Prayer is our communion with God. Prayer is a strategy that God has given us for our daily living.
Are we passionate with our worship? Are we fervent in our prayer as well?
The word ‘fervent‘ means ‘to display a passionate intensity’ but we need to be clear it is not talking about who shouts the loudest or who is most eloquent in wording.
Passion is the fuel that drives you past discouragement, past hurt, past exhaustion and pushes you to carry on praying when you feel you can’t.
We need to capture our passion again!
God says our prayers have the potential to be powerful and effective but for them to become so, something needs to be done, an action on our part.
A powerful car, needs the battery and the fuel in it to run but unless the power source is connected to the vehicle, it will go nowhere. Likewise, in our prayer life we need to be connected to the source, before our prayers become powerful and effective.
Just because we pray, doesn’t mean it is powerful and effective. But when we are fervent in prayer, it releases the power of our praying. Passion is not external it is stirred internally by the Holy Spirit and because it’s internal, it is not affected by external factors.
if we do not have this internal fervency, when the external circumstance of life comes and they are not favourable toward us, we end up just falling by the wayside because we have nothing to keep us going.
We need to allow the Spirit to help us, even when we do not know what to pray.
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
Romans 8:26 ESV
When the Spirit is with us, we can become passionately fuelled to lift our prayers. Without the Holy Spirit, it is just hype and emotionalism. We MUST become intimate with the Spirit.
How many of us when things go against us, the last thing we do is pray. Is it perhaps because deep down we really don’t believe our prayer will change or affect the situation.
Are we strategic inner praying or are we just throwing words out and hoping that they mean something or are we being thoughtful and intentional because that’s what strategy means.
Remember God is both thoughtful and intentional. We become strategic in our pray by looking at the undercurrents of our lives, communities by looking to see what is happening in the world and then spiritually discerning where satan is at work.
We need to be strategic because satan is strategic. He is not just throwing out a blanket of tactics in the hope that he catches someone in his schemes and lies.
No, he knows human nature and uses a strategy that plays to the weakness of the flesh.
We need to be people who need to discern what the enemy is up to.
Find a place to be with God, it doesn’t have to a room but any place where it becomes a place of focus.
Communicate with God with your heart.
Unless we do what is right, our prayers can only live in a potential state. There is a responsibility with us to dig deeper to allow the potential to become powerful.
If Jesus was intentional with his prayers, why shouldn’t we re?!
Make time for God, take time away from your phone. Give God at least 10 minutes everyday to come aside and be with him.
There are 6 verses to encourage us:
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 John 5:14
And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. 1 John 5:15
Seek the Lord and His strength; Seek His face evermore! 1 Chronicles 16:11
If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14
Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; Romans 12:12
Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. James 5:16
We hope that you will make time for God. Be fervent in your prayers. Step out from the potential and allow with the equipping of the Holy Spirit for it to become powerful and effective. Be blessed, be encouraged that God is still working and speaking to you, become part of that conversation.