New King James Version James 5:16 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.
Have you ever thought about the statement “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much”? If you think about it, you will know that it has deep meaning.
I will be sharing with you my thoughts about the above Bible verse.
I will start from the story of Elijah praying for rain not to fall and rain did not fall for three years.
He also prayed for rain to start falling and rain started falling again.
This story in the Bible shows you what prayer can do. Prayer can do the impossible.
Elijah did not pray for a few minutes instead he prayed for hours and I know that because the second time he prayed, his servant had to go check 7 times before rain fell again.
So that shows that the prayer was a long one, possibly for hours.
Elijah didn’t stop praying until there was a sign that rain was going to fall.
This is not just a story but a real event that was captured in the Bible.
And this story is there to show you what prayer can do.
We can see that Elijah’s prayer was effective and it produces results.
How can you make your prayer effective to get a result like that of Elijah’s?
Pray with Emotions
You should not pray because it is a routine, instead, you should pray because you want to communicate with your God.
When praying, you are permitted to pray with Emotions. You can cry, you can shout depending on how you feel.
You can also get excited when praising God. God loves it when we communicate with him with emotions rather than making it a routine.
I’m sure you will enjoy it when your children communicate with you and express their emotions.
And I’m sure you won’t like having robots as your children or your children behaving like robots.
In the same way, God doesn’t like it when His children behave like robots.
Know and pray about the will of God
When you pray according to the will of God, God will answer you fast
Imagine you have a son and you want him to become a doctor and he is studying medicine at the university.
Now your son wants to pay his school fees and you have the funds. You will be willing to pay because he is doing what you want him to do.
You also have another son but you want him to become an engineer because that is his capability but he enrols for a football academy.
Now, he needs to pay his football academy fees, even though you have the funds, you might not be willing to pay because he isn’t studying the course you want him to study.
That is the same way we treat God, we don’t work based on the will of God for us.
We do what we want and we pray to God to answer us even though that is not the will of God for us.
The Bible says that one of the reasons why God does not answer our prayers is because we pray amiss and pray for our selfish desire.
This means that when we pray according to the will of God, He will answer us.
When we also pray against the will of God, He will not answer us.
The way to know the will of God is by studying the word of God. When you study the word of God, you will be able to know God’s will.
For instance, God wants us to rejoice in every situation.
He wants us to love our neighbours as ourselves.
When you know the will of God then you can pray for it to come to pass in your life.
The Lord’s prayer says that let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
So that means we have the responsibility of making God’s will come to pass on earth by praying.
Keep praying until you get answers
From the story of Elijah in the Bible, you will notice that he kept praying until He got an answer to his prayer.
That is the same attitude you need to have, you should keep praying until you get an answer to your prayer.
The Bible also says that we should till our joy is full. That means we should not stop praying when we are tired instead we should wait in the place of prayer till we get good news.
It is not the duration of your prayer that matters but the effectiveness of your prayer.
Some challenges need 10 minutes to get solved.
Some challenges need a 1-hour prayer to get solved
While some challenges need 7 hours of prayer to get resolved.
The best thing you can do is to keep praying until your joy is full and keep praying until you get answers.
Pray in the spirit
As a Christian, you need to be filled with the spirit o God.
You also need to pray in the spirit.
When you pray in the spirit, God will help you pray about the right things you need.
Praying in the spirit will give you strength whenever you feel weak and tired.
You need to try it every day