My prayers are powerful, and so are yours, or at least they can be!

Around the time we were transitioning from the old to the new year last night, I was informed of an answer to prayer that I had prayed to be honest, without a lot of hope. And the Lord reminded me this morning, that my prayers are powerful. I say this, not because I feel that my prayers are powerful, but because of a Biblical principal. And the principal is “The fervent prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective” (James 5:16).

Now most of us (including me at times) will disqualify ourselves from this principle for two reasons. First of all we disqualify ourselves because we tell ourselves “I am not righteous.” Of course we do not have a righteousness of our own, but the Christian has a righteousness imputed to him or her from God by faith (Philippians 3: 9). So God sees me as righteous, because he sees me in Christ. And His opinion is more important than mine!

The second reason we disqualify ourselves, is that we tell ourselves that our prayers are anything but fervent, meaning with a sense of urgency, or of desperation but filled with hope. And there is a kind of Catch-22 operating here. Our prayers are not fervent, because we don’t believe they are powerful, and we don’t believe that they are powerful, because we either don't know this powerful Biblical principle, or if we do, we disqualify ourselves from it because we do not embrace our righteousness in Christ.

Father, thank You for taking me deeper into these things this morning. Lord I repent of my unbelief, I choose to believe that I am righteous in You, and that my prayers are powerful. I believe, help my unbelief! Lord please help to remember to tell myself these things over and over until I truly believe them, and then to tell myself these things because I believe them in Jesus Name Amen