In keeping with the rest of the week, I am posting tonight. If you are all like me, the days seem to get busy and before you know it, the night is here and there's still a long list of things to do....
I spent this evening preparing for speaking engagement next week. I had planned to attend our church's study on Revelation but got delayed in 3 different places and ended up arriving later than expected and would have missed too much of the study if I had gone on in -- and it would have been distracting as well. So I chose to send my husband a text to let him know where I'd be and find a quiet place to study and see if I could make any headway on this speaking engagement. To my amazement, God wanted an appointment with me because He had something really neat to show me in His Word!
If you read my post last week, you'll remember that I had been struggling with a song that I was preparing to sing at this same event. I have been singing it over and over and have prayed over it and have sought God's direction in presenting something new about prayer to this sweet group of ladies -- something that they could grab onto and take with them as both a challenge and an encouragement to stay the course and maybe even dig a little deeper to find a new spark.
Little by little, Lord has begun to reveal to me that prayer isn't just one way communication. It's not just about our requests, needs, cries, and pleadings -- it's truly communication -- and it requires two things of us -- attitude and action. Our attitude should be of total dependence upon God -- and the action is to ask Him with a heart of faith. The next step in this is to allow our spiritual eyes and ears to remain open to be ready to see and/or hear from God. The song has a line in it that says, God loves us way too much to give us lesser things. If our prayers are just a laundry list of needs or a wish list of hopes and dreams, then that's not true communication.
Let's draw this out of the spiritual and into the physical for a moment...if we only spoke in lists to our spouses or children or co-workers everyday, would there be much of a relationship? If we only asked for rewards and blessings from our parents without knowing them or loving them, would they be inclined to hear us? What if we shared our hopes and dreams with our friends but really didn't care so much about theirs, would that be any kind of friendship?
I think that's what misses in our prayer lives. So often, our prayers don't communicate a heart that wants much more than quick answers to selfish needs. Oh sure, we have serious requests that we bring to our Father -- such as healing for those who are sick, salvation for the lost and restoration for those who have drifted away. But sometimes we get so caught up in our habits of asking God to bless our food and listing our material needs that we end our prayers with "in Jesus' Name, Amen" and move on with our lives. It's shallow communication at best with our Creator and Savior!
"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16)
This verse has followed me everywhere for the last week. There are so many words in it that we, or at least I, don't use daily. Effectual, Fervent, Availeth -- what do those words mean...and if the Bible says there is none righteous -- no not one...(Romans 3:10) then is it even possible for a human to pray this kind of prayer or in such a way? Ok, so let's pull out the dictionary and define these words...
Effectual -- according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary -- this word means "producing or able to produce a desired effect"
Fervent -- is defined as: 1: very hot : glowing 2: exhibiting or marked by great intensity of feeling : zealous
Availeth -- is defined in 3 ways: 1.as an intransitive verb: to be of use or advantage : serve
So if we look at this verse according to these definitions then Productive, zealous prayers of the righteous man benefit, or make use of much --- hmmmm, it kind of talks in circles doesn't it.
Productive, Intense Prayer produces benefits which are useful, productive and beneficial -- in other words, The more we pray, the more powerful we believe, the more powerful we believe, the more fervent or zealous our prayer life, the more powerful our prayer life becomes, the more productive our lives become -- the more productive our lives become, the more fruit our lives bear -- the more fruit our lives bear - the more righteous we become -- the more righteous we become - the more glory we bring to God...
There is none righteous, no not one - except through the blood of Christ (Romans 3:21-24). So if we go back and look at James 3:10 again -- we see that the "righteous man" is one who is under the blood of Christ -- the effective, fervent prayer life is a discipline and a gift that comes from a life devoted to Christ not for self-serving, self gratifying answers to prayer - but out of a heart that is passionately consumed with knowing God. This type of personal relationship is so much more -- it's like Moses - a friend of God, it's like Abraham and Job, so trusting of God that in the face of losing all that they held dear believed that God was good regardless of circumstances. Like John, so close to Jesus, that he could hear his heart beat at the Last Supper. Like David, so zealous that he sought after God's heart with all his might. Like Mary, willing to give up her life, her reputation, and her future out of her love and obedient servant's heart in bearing God's only Son, Jesus as a virgin. Like Peter, so loyal to Christ that he gave up his livelihood, jumped out of a boat, cut off an ear, and died upside down on a cross. Like Paul, whose life was so radically changed when he met Christ, that he changed his name, his direction, his mission and suffered greatly for the cause of Christ and wrote more books in the New Testament than any other...
So...the question lies in waiting -- are we praying effective, fervent prayers and are they availing much? or are our prayers self-serving, done out of habit, or spoken eloquently for man's approval?
The truth lies in this -- if we are to become the person named in the message of James 3:10, all hell could rise up against us. God bragged on his servant Job and Satan heard about it -- and things got much worse before they got better. Are we up to the challenge - ready for the test? Is Heaven noticing us?
Questions to ponder -- not easy ones to answer -- Heaven notices when our prayers are 2 way communication -- if answers don't come immediately, don't panic -- listen...look...watch...God speaks back to those who will.
I love you precious friends....see ya tomorrow...Amy
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