“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteousness man availeth much”. – James 5:16 (KJV).
One of the ways to access God’s wonder working power to change things, assert our authority and have our needs met is through prayers. If we care to pray, we can move mountains, fill valleys, straighten crooked ways and smoothen rough paths.
The wicked devices of the devil can be thwarted and unimaginable victories can be won through prayer. Most times, believers resort to cares and worries over things they can change through prayer. When we pray, God gets involved in the affairs of our lives. Prayer is involving God, not to pray is to be on your own. This is dangerous knowing that we are not sufficient of our own to do anything but our sufficiency is of God (2Corinthians 3:5).
When God gets involved in the affairs of our lives, he takes our cares, our fears and our burdens and gives us peace and rest in return. We often have this impression that since God is all knowing, that he does not need our prayers to get involved, that if he loves us and care for us as he says, he will not need to wait for our prayers to do something about our situation. What we fail to understand is that God created us as free moral agents, he cannot violet our will. He cannot invade our lives. He could exercise his supremacy and pre-eminence in love and mercy but his principles still stands. “Verily I say unto you, whatever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” Matthew 18:18(KJV). When we fully understand the power at our disposal through prayer, we will resort to prayer instead of blaming God for allowing or permitting certain things to happen to us the way they do. Through prayer, one can change the course of events in people’s lives and one can also influence the affairs of one’s family, society and nation. Prayer has no geographical limitation. One can pray for people in other nations of the world and achieve great result.
“Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him” Acts 12:5(KJV). Satan will always stir up people to attack the Christians; it could be wrong bills or policies by the government or by our boss in our work places. This is why the scriptures admonish us to pray for one another and for leaders and people in authority so we can live a quiet and peaceable life. God often intervenes when we pray, like he did In Peter’s case. Perhaps, if the church had prayed fervently for James like they did for Peter, James’ life could have been spared.
Elijah prayed in the old covenant and he changed things, much more we can achieve in this new covenant if we care to pray and believe.
PRAYER: Oh Lord, strengthen my prayer life in Jesus name.
Rev. Vincent Diolu