Prayer 2021 - August 13 - What James Had to Say About Prayer pt 8

Scripture For Today:

 Acts 8:22

 “Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart.”

What James Had to Say About Prayer pt 8

We have been studying what the Apostle James had to say about prayer. We have been studying the verses from James 5:13-18:

“Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any Merry? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he has committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. 

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

 Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it did not rain on the earth by the space of three years and six months! And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit.”

Yesterday, we focused on verse 16, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

We learned that if a person is sick, possibly dying and needing prayer, we can and should go over and pray for them. Remember the first part of this scripture, we learned that a believer, if able, should be praying for themselves. But we are talking here about someone, believer who is incapacitated or unable to pray – or an unbeliever who doesn’t know the first thing about praying effectively.

We studied that this person needs to repent of his or her sins before the anointing oil and/or prayer is made for them. God is not going to bless what is already cursed. It just does not work that way.

There is no way they will receive their healing with unconfessed sin in their life. They must confess it before the Lord, in private to you or the pastor or the elders – this IS NOT a public confessional meeting as some religions profess is needed – amen!

But it will not matter WHO prays for you or for a person who is lost and in this condition – if they refuse to admit they are a sinner before the Lord. It just will not work. They will not receive their healing…

Now, I guess I should pause here and say, “YES – anything is possible with the Lord.” I’m not going to say Jesus will not answer our prayer and heal them. But, let’s just say that God is not obligated in any way to answer their prayer because they REFUSE to confess their sins FIRST.

They must do their part in order to trust God to do His part.  Amen!

And that goes for believers, too!  Don’t just shut down unbelievers in this way. Amen!

It would do us all good to examine ourselves every now and then to see if we have any unrepented sin still clinging to us in our lives. If so, we need to get rid of it because, as we’ve learned, “God cannot bless what He has already cursed.”

He is not going to bless you financially just so you can kick back, watch TV and eat chocolate bon-bon’s all day long. Amen! 

If He blesses you financially, it is so YOU can be a financial blessing to someone else. Period. He is simply using you as a distribution channel so the Gospel can be shared with others. Don’t get greedy or tight handed when it comes to giving finances. Amen!

I think that would be a good spot to end today. I’ll just let you ponder that last thought until tomorrow. Amen!

Let’s Pray!

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