Skip to main content

Don't Hold Back In Prayer

Don’t hold back in prayer.
James 5:13-20 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.17 Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. 18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. 19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.


What do you look forward to most in your day?
I look forward to several things every day. I look forward to seeing each face of each of my children and my wife every day. I look forward to seeing the landscape on my way to work. I look forward to guessing who i will get to see at the window at the campus post office and of being able to speak with students who come in. And when it is time to head home, I look forward to seeing the faces of those kids and my beautiful wife again. 
James is writing about looking forward to praying to God and seeing him answer. What does powerful and effective mean? Do you believe your prayers are powerful and effective? James describes Elijah as a human being just like you. James makes this a point on purpose to help us see we need not hold back in our prayers. We hold back when we look at ourselves. James wants us to look at our God!
Elijah prayed earnestly that it would not rain and it did not rain for 3.5 yrs! What if you really believed you could pray like Elijah?

There are many false beliefs about prayers; can you name some? When was the last answer to prayer you had? If you had to guess what you were holding back on praying for, what would you guess it was?

Mark 1:35 tells us "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed."  Even Jesus, the Son of God, prayed!

In Matthew 6:5 Jesus tells us about prayers that are not at all like Elijah's--they are hypocritical prayers: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. What is a hypocritical prayer? One that is not the righteous prayer like Elijah.

Jesus gives us a remedy in Matthew 6:6. "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." The remedy this supplies is the connection--not between you and the answer but between you and the God to whom you are praying! Promises come with this statement Jesus makes! Isn't about time for a reward for you?

Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5.17  to “pray continually” Are you on your way to communion with God in such a way that you talk to Him throughout your day? What could that be like for you?

One of the effective natures of our prayers is to not fall into temptation. How do you suppose prayer helps with that? Luke 22.45-46 When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. 46 “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.”  

Spend some time in Elijah praying for others today! Really, don’t hold back in your praying! 
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

"Just Thinking About Jesus"

I was wondering today about how I could start meaningful, spiritual conversations with others whom I know are not Christians but perhaps once were. I wondered how I would come across if I was deep in thought and he or she asked me, "What are you so deep in thought about?" and I replied, "I was just thinking about Jesus." I wouldn't want it to be annoying, just bridging. I was reading over an article adapted from The Evangelism Study Bible, that explored responding to people who have had a bad experience with Christianity. I found their five reminders worth repeating and good for keeping in the back of your mind, once practiced in your "holy imagination" (aka, spiritual reflection). 1. Don't be defensive. Remembering that it isn't so much that you do not agree, but HOW you disagree that will stick in their minds when they walk away. Take into yourself their comments as if you were the one who did them wrong and then reflect it back to the...
Read more

Revelation's Whore as Today's Culture

  https://thehustle.co/originals/why-you-almost-never-see-a-clock-at-the-mall The word “whore” may have different definitions to some, but I want to use it as a woman who markets herself for the sole purpose of robbing men of their life for her own gain--whatever her “gain” is: monetary, lust, or otherwise. She is the reverse-consumer and profiteer at the same time, a vampiress, a luxurious drunk, functioning alcoholic. Her appeal is a marketing scheme based on not just years of study, but an exquisite composition of research and development where she is both scientist and evidence, psychologist and client--in an endless cycle and sinister feedback loop of trial and error, hypothesis and investigation, feeding and consuming. All the while tricking you into believing you are the main character. But it isn’t about you. You have entered her Nirvana constructed for you to “remain inside” her. Once her legs are wrapped around you, she is sure to suck your life away. And as titillati...
Read more

What if Metallica Came to YOUR Church?

A reaction to John Van Sloten's, The Day Metallica Came To Church: Searching For The Everywhere God in Everything ,  2010. This book caused me to rethink some of my foundational theologies, specifically Creation and the Fall. If God created us in His image and declared His creation as ‘very good’, what consequences did the sin of Adam and Eve have upon us? How deep does it go? I have some very strong thinking patterns that hold everything as either good or bad, God’s or Satan’s, black or white. This either/or (dualistic?) outlook doesn’t leave room for the mysterious. But what if all of these things were meant to lead me to something more? What if I always stopped short because I was led to believe that when I came to a certain point I had arrived—mission complete--stop here and move on to another subject? And what if that wasn't true? I was challenged by the thought of how God speaks to us outside of the Bible. I have believed that God speaks to me through many things (...
Read more

Family Time Videos