TODAY’S DEVOTION (Tuesday 19th March 2025)
“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.” James 5:16-17 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 77TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
Today the LORD will be speaking to us about prayer and praying.
I am yet to see something as powerful as prayers! If you look at Bible history and the lives of all who walked with God from their prayer knees, you will see the wonders of prayer, especially the right prayers. In my opinion, no one can accurately tell what prayers can do. If you say you have been praying and yet what you may have been praying for is not working, you lie. Prayer works wonders.
Now I have realized again why Jesus said men always ought to pray and not loose heart. It is really assigned to men to pray always. When we pray always, we put God to walk always. When we do not pray, we cripple His work.
Heaven and earth are shifted to align with God’s will through prayers. Angels answer to prayers. The Holy Spirit moves when we pray. Eternity invades time when we pray. Healing takes place when we pray. Power is unleashed when we pray. Prophecies are made manifest when we pray. Wisdom is released when we pray.
Mountains are leveled when we pray. Valleys are filled when we pray. Crooked ways are made straight when we pray. Divine directions are given when we pray. Divine warnings come when we pray. Divine revelations are released when we pray. Veils are torn from our heart when we pray! Prayer works wonders.
David was one of the many Bible Characters that saw the amazing works of prayer. If you read what he wrote in Psalm 18, you will understand what I am saying. In one of those blessed verses, he said “I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from my enemies!”
That is a deep revelation!
WE ARE NOT SAVED FROM OUR ENEMIES BY DOING ANYTHING OTHER THAN PRAYER.
We are not saved by fighting them. We are not saved by asking that God kill them. That will be making God a hired assassin. We are not saved by confronting them physically. That will be walking in the flesh, and the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.
We are saved by calling on the LORD to save us from their hands. Hallelujah!
He alone knows what right thing to do to save us from their hands. When David did that, the Bible says God invaded the earth; eternity invaded time to rescue him. What if he had not called on the LORD? What if he had just assumed that God will act? If you have not experienced the wonders of prayer, you will never understand me this morning.
Sadly, not all prayers do when I have just outlined. There are prayers that do not move even an ant. There are people who have been on prayer until they die without seeing the result. Many have resigned from praying because of the frustration they face in prayer.
Our devotional text said, “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much”. That means not all prayers are the same. Some are as dead spiritually as the lives of those praying them. A spiritually dead person cannot pray prayer that brings God’s power down, because it is the state of a person’s spiritual life that defines the power of his prayer.
Our devotional text made it clear that it is the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man that avails much. The amplified version makes it clearer. It says,
“The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].”
It did not say the earnest heartfelt continued prayer of a wicked man makes tremendous power available. The Bible made it clear that the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD.
Righteousness simple means right standing with God.
IF YOU ARE IN RIGHT STANDING WITH GOD, SPIRIT, SOUL AND BODY, IT WILL SHOW IN YOUR PRAYER LIFE.
The earnest heartfelt continued prayer of a man in right standing with God makes tremendous power available. It is your spiritual state that determines the result you get in prayer.
If you are not in right standing with God, do not attempt prayer for miracles of blessings, it will be frustrating. Make things right with GOD first through the prayer of repentance. Many take things for granted and walk in assumptions. That is why their prayer lives are loud but with little or no results.
They assume they are born again while they are not. They assume they are Holy Spirit led because of some voices they hear, while they are not. They assume they are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus while they are not. If you are truly the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus as you claim, your prayers will be making tremendous power available to you.
You will not need to go for prayers, people will rather be coming to you for prayers.
Time has come to stop all forms of hypocrisy and become real before God so he can help us. Until our spiritual lives are in right standing with God, our prayer life will remain dead and powerless irrespective of how heartfelt and continued it may be. Answer to prayer does not come because we our prayers are heartfelt and persistent. Though that is important! They come because we are standing right with God.
This is where Holy Spirit led prayers are necessary.
The Bible teaches that we do not know how to pray but the Spirit helps our infirmities by first putting our lives right and then praying through us. Sometimes with groaning that cannot be uttered.
I believe the LORD has spoken to someone today.
Understand that the religious spirit has being the governor of our prayer lives. That is why we pray and pray with little or no results to show. One major thing it did is that it removed the prayer Spirit and gave us prayer books in replacement. Most local churches today have become like metaphysical cultist so long as prayers are concerned.
Friend, understand that until our spiritual lives are improved, our prayer lives will not be improved. Until our prayer lives improve, the results we get in prayer will remain small.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR US TODAY!!
Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26-27 NKJV