Real Christianity Part 9: Becoming a Powerful and Effective Pray-er!

James 5:16 (NIV)

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

#1: Powerful and Effective Pray-ers are –

People!

• Being “righteous” is about “standing right” with God!

Romans 4:2-5 (MSG)
Abraham trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.⁴ If you’re a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don’t call your wages a gift. ⁵ But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it’s something only God can do, and you trust him to do it, well … that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NLT)
For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

• Being “righteous” is also about “standing right” with others!

Matthew 6:14-15 (MSG)
(Jesus said) — In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. ¹⁵ If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part.

1 Peter 3:7 (NLT)

Husbands … treat your wife as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.

#2: Powerful and Effective Pray-ers are –

People!

James 5:17 (TLB)
Elijah was as completely human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for the next three and a half years!

• God can do “extra-ordinary” things through “ordinary people” that dare to partner with him in prayer!

• God not only uses “real people” to pray in powerful and effective ways, God wants us to “be real” when we pray!

Matthew 6:5-6 (MSG)
And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production … All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat? Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.

#3: Powerful and Effective Pray-ers are –

People!

Luke 18:1 (NLT)

One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up.

Luke 18:2-7 (NLT)

“There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. ³ A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ ⁴ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, ⁵ but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out (lit: going to give me a black eye) with her constant requests!’’”

⁶ Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. ⁷ Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?”

• No matter what, don’t give up on God, keep praying!

Luke 11:9-10 (NLT)

Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

• No matter what, don’t give up on others, keep interceding!

James 5:19-20 (MSG)
My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back ²⁰ and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God.