James 5:16 NIV The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
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When the results of what we pray don’t match what we asked for or declared, what seems to be the logical conclusion, based on this verse? That we are not righteous, or at least not righteous enough. Then we look inward even further to determine what we did wrong, what we failed to do, or what we didn’t do enough. We want to determine what specific sin we committed this time, the one that must be the cause of our current unrighteousness. Though this seems logical, it is a tool of our enemy to hinder us by keeping our focus in the wrong place.
The righteousness referred to in James is not based on what we do or don’t do. The Bible refers to people as either wicked or righteous, just or unjust1. Contrary to what we may have believed in the past, we don’t bounce between the two based on what we’ve done recently. In fact, it has nothing to do with anything we have done, except this one thing. Our Father God calls us righteous if we have believed in and received Jesus Christ. Period. He then calls us His righteousness in Christ Jesus2. You see, it is the righteousness of Jesus Christ in us, not our own personal righteousness. Since He never becomes unrighteous, neither do we.
We will never be righteous enough on our own to pray powerful and effective prayers. That’s why we need Jesus. Not only do we need Him for the initial salvation experience and for heaven when we die, but we need His eternal righteousness in us every day in every part of our lives! And we have it and Him as soon as we believe and receive. Jesus paid the price for sin in full, once for all people and all sins3. What no human could ever do, He finished4 completely at the cross, making His righteousness available for our unrighteousness.
Really, it’s the simple message of salvation. We need to allow the message of Jesus’ righteousness in us to permeate even our prayers. We have focused on the wrong part of the verse, which has kept us more concerned with how we miss the mark of God’s standard, hindering the effectiveness of prayer. When we are certain of our righteousness in Christ alone, however, the second part of the verse becomes real to us. We are then able to pray with the certainty that our prayers are powerful and effective, and we pray with more boldness and authority, because it’s based on the righteousness of Christ.
The body of Christ has been hindered from affecting the world for God’s kingdom by wrong believing. Now that we know we are righteous men and women of God in Christ Jesus, we can declare, “No more defeated thinking! Jesus is always righteous, so we are always righteous enough in Him.” Now on to powerful and effective praying!
1 1 Peter 3:18 NIV and KJV 2 2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 3:22 3 Romans 6:10, Hebrews 7:27, Hebrews 10:10, 1 Peter 3:18 4 John 19:30
© Copyright 2011 Kay V. Stocking
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