I've been thinking about one of my favourite verses recently. It's fairly well known and has proved very helpful to me in the last couple of weeks.
It's James 5 verse 16b: The prayer of the righteous man is powerful and effective. (NIV)
If you were hoping for absolutely ground-breaking theological insight...look elsewhere. Because the next three posts (God willing!), will pretty much be primarily for my benefit!
Thought I'd have a go at looking at three particular words individually, to help me get my head around this verse even more. Righteous. Powerful. Effective.
First of all: Righteous.
You might recall last week that I was pretty pissed with God. Quite stupid really, especially with some hindsight. As a little reminder that He continues to work things out for my own goodness, I'm sitting here without the reactions of last week clouding my walk with Him. Because He makes us new again, each and every day. So while I react like a petulant child in one moment, He restores me to become more and more like His Son, in the next. I probably needed a smack on the bum from my heavenly Father, like a stroppy child...instead I get something of HIS righteousness. Renewed again and again and again and again.
It is because when I come to Him in prayer, I walk with faith because of what I know His Son did for me on the cross. Therefore, I don't speak to a false god or imaginary friend because of this; but it is in fact one-to-one access with the Creator that I continually get to fall back on. If this doesn't make me a 'righteous man', then I don't know what will.
Such a gift. Such forgiveness. Such access.
It means that my prayers, while they may often be selfish and lacking in vision, are able to be said through a heart that comes clean before God each time, because of how He has revealed Himself through situation after situation in my life. That time I forgot it; this time, I've remembered it.
In Psalm 119, King David says: 'Your righteousness is eternally right, your revelation is the only truth.' (v142, MSG)
And later...'The way you tell me to live is always right; help me to understand it so I can live to the fullest.' (v144)
Thank His goodness for that revelation!
