REPOST Today’s Spiritual Food for Thought, provided by Christine Li, was first posted on August 2, 2014. Christine, a graduate of University of Pennsylvania, serves as a deaconess at Remnant Church in Manhattan, New York.
Spiritual Food for Thought for the Weekend
“Why Is Our Prayer So Weak and Ineffective?”
James 5:16b-17
“The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.”
What is prayer to you? Is it a chore? Is it fruitless whispering? James reminds us that there is great power in prayer, such great power that an ordinary man could pray earnestly to God and it would stop raining for three and a half years.
Do you consider yourself to be a man “just like” Elijah? I know that I don’t, and I also give a lot of complicated excuses for why my prayer life is not like Elijah’s: “He was a chosen prophet and what he prayed was probably more in line with what God’s will was. He probably had more faith than I do, too. Also, it sounds a little prideful to consider myself ‘righteous.’” It is very easy to look at all these reasons and attribute the inefficacy of my prayer life to these reasons. But what ends up happening is that I also dull the desire to engage God in prayer.
In making prayer about ourselves or our abilities, we fail to see that it is a powerful activity that shows us more of God and His power. First, we know that in Christ, every believer is counted as righteous in standing with God. If that is true (and as believers, we do believe it to be true), then our prayers are powerful and effective! Second, let’s not neglect the idea that Elijah was “just like us,” and let’s really trust that Elijah’s life could seem not too far off a reality from each Christian’s life because the power that filled him is the same power that we have access to. In fact, we have more than just “access” to it: this Spirit resides in us (Romans 8:11)!
Do you think yourself unworthy to pray for your church, your pastor, or others? I hope that here, with James’ reminder, we will not only readjust our attitude towards prayer, but that we will act on it and begin to seek God in prayer even more actively. As He answers our prayers, He will show us even more of His power!
Prayer: Dear LORD, thank You not just for new life but for also making us righteous. We don’t always understand what implications it has for our life, but for now, please change our attitudes about prayer. Every day, LORD, teach us how to pray with faith, really trusting in the new nature You gave us and the free access we have to approach Your throne. Amen.
Bible Reading for Today: 1 Corinthians 12
There is a bully in the spiritual realm that works hard to bring condemnation. He is very good at using intimidation, shame, guilt, fear, or whatever else is at his disposal to beat us down. This bully knows that once we allow condemnation to come into our heart, he can influence and control our life.
What does it mean for the heart to be a highway to Zion? In the Bible, Zion is synonymous with Jerusalem, the city where the temple of God rests. As the psalm focuses on the desire for the presence of God that is found in the temple, the highway imagery paints a picture of the psalmist’s heart angled and directed to meet with Him.
Companies rallied behind this overused mantra believing that 2020 would be the year of clarity and new breakthroughs. Yet no one could have anticipated the events unfolding today. Instead of a year of moving forward, it seems we haven’t moved very much. If anything, we have moved backwards as we have been inundated with tumultuous events no one saw coming. And in response, we can become, like the servant in our passage today, so fixated on the events themselves that we lose sight of God.
Sunday worship is no longer the same. No more donuts and coffee, greeters to welcome you, a praise band to uplift you, or even the fellowship afterwards. But, perhaps, what I miss the most is hearing everyone sing together. Sadly, as worship becomes confined to a screen over Zoom, we see less people praising God. I suppose it’s a bit awkward to hear your own voice especially when you don’t have a band to drown it out. And yet in our passage this morning, God reveals to His people the importance of praising and signing, that is, the importance of worship.
Some experts say that looking in the mirror and complimenting yourself actually helps to build your self-esteem. As silly as it seems, telling yourself, “You’re awesome!” has a real effect on how you feel, at least temporarily.
Sport analysts often give grades to each team after a draft day. That’s the day in which collegiate athletes are drafted by professional teams that hope to find the next Michael Jordan or Lebron James. Some teams are given a confident outlook of the future and receive an “A” grade from the analysts. Other teams are given the horrid “F” and is projected to continue as losers in a highly competitive market. Sometimes they are right, while a lot of the times, they get it wrong.
Many years ago, a young man who attended my youth group in the mid-1980s sent me an email out of the blue; at the time, he was pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy.
I’ve heard this statement far more times this year than I can count. Certainly, there is a lot of division and I don’t anticipate it to decrease but rather increase as the year progresses. Unfortunately, we’ve seen that the Church is not exempt from this divisiveness despite Jesus interceding for the Church in the High Priestly Prayer (John 17), in which he petitions the Father that the Church would be one. Of course, unity does not mean conformity in thought nor does it mean agreement in all things; but perhaps Romans 12:10 gives us a directive on how we can still come together in unity.