Hope for Healing, Faith for Living Podcast

We are still talking about having the goal of 100% answered prayer. We gone over verse after verse showing it’s God’s will that we ask and receive what we have prayed for. 

Now let’s look at what it takes to pray powerful prayers.

James 5:13-16 ESV

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 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. 15 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. 16 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. (Some other translations read this way, “ The effective prayer of a righteous person has great power”) 

Effective prayers are prayers that God responds to. We know that when we pray inline with, or according to God’s revealed will, that he hears our prayers and we have what we have prayed for.  Let’s hear scripture on this again.

1 John 5:14-15 ESV

14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

Now let’s talk about powerful prayer.  In order to have powerful prayer, you might think what you need is powerful faith. Yes, we do need faith but what does James 5:16 says makes prayer powerful?

What makes effective prayers powerful is righteousness.

James 5:16 says it's being righteous, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. (Some other translations read this way, “ The effective prayer of a righteous person has great power”)

What does righteous mean?

Mostly when we talk about righteousness in biblical terms we are talking about being right with God. It also carries the meaning of being right, pure and just which God is. Because we have forgiveness in Christ and have become new, the Scripture teaches us we are the righteousness of God in Christ.

Let me share a couple of Scriptures with you that speak to this.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Romans 3:22 ESV

22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

Now let’s review a few points we’ve talked about today.

According to 1 John 5:14-15, when we pray according to his will, we know God hears our prayers and we know we have what we have asked of him.  Think about that. When we pray, we are to know we have what we are asking for. That’s what the Scripture teaches.

So we pray with boldness, with confidence because we are basing our prayers on the will of God as revealed in his Word. That’s acting in faith. Now what makes these prayers of faith powerful? Righteousness. Not our own but the righteousness of God we enjoy because of what Christ has done for us through his redemptive work.  Amen.

We will continue talking our prayer in our next episode.

Blessings in Christ,

Tim Dumas
www.hopeforhealingfaithforliving.com