James, Day 5
The Power of Prayer (James 5)
“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. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit” (James 5:13 – 18).
When I was younger, I remember several times when I would look for something that I had lost. After searching for several minutes, I would finally pray to God and ask for His help for finding it. Most of the time, the object would “suddenly” appear before me in a place that I had looked at several times before. If this has ever happened to you, then you know exactly what I am talking about.
What is your first response when you either need something you do not have or when something does not go the way you want it to go? Do you get frustrated or angry? For me, it is sometimes to either complain because I do not have or to feel hopeless because I feel powerless. One of the greatest benefits of being a Christian is that we have 24-hour, anywhere-in-the-world, access to God. We are His children and He wants us to come to Him for all things.
As I read this passage, I tend to focus on verses 17 – 18. Why? Because whenever I read about Elijah in the Old Testament, I am just amazed at what he does. How could people like us ever come close to being like Elijah? But then it hits me: We are not that different from Elijah. We are all human with a sinful nature. We all experience pain, suffering, loneliness, and so on. If Elisha’s prayers can have power, then ours can too. But how?
For one thing, Elijah’s prayers were not to benefit himself, like so many of our prayers. His prayers were to benefit God. He prayed for the drought to punish a sinful king. He prayed for the jug of oil to never run out to show the power of God. He prayed for a boy to come back to life to show that God’s Word is truth. He prayed for God to send fire from heaven hot enough to burn water and rocks to prove that God is the only true God. The one prayer that we know of where God did not answer Elijah’s request was when he asked God to take his life (1 Kings 19:4). Whenever Elijah prayed to glorify God, God responded positively. When Elijah prayed a selfish prayer, God gave him what he needed: strength and a helper to encourage him.
Does God answer your prayers the way that you want Him to? If not, then maybe it is because your prayers are more inward-focused instead of outward-focused. A selfless prayer sounds easy enough, but it isn’t easy at all. The only way to do that is to put God first in our life and “not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think” (Romans 12:3). We are so used to treating God as a genie to grant us our every wish that we forget that we are here to serve Him and not vice-versa. When we change our focus to eternal instead of temporal, we will see amazing things happen. We will see lives changed and people who are committed to sharing the Gospel with their friends and neighbors. We will witness miracles with no human explanations. Spend time every day asking the Lord what He wants and get ready to experience the impossible.
Pastor David Guenin