Reflect: What does it mean to be a righteous person? How does righteousness help our prayers?

Request (Prayer): Ask God to make you a righteous person?

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Does that mean that the prayer of an unrighteous person doesn’t have power? Yes. How so? In order to understand this whole idea about a righteous persons prayer being powerful, we first need to understand what the word “righteous” means.

The word, righteous, means, “just and right; free from guilt and sin”. So the righteous person is one who is free of sin and guilt. What person is righteous? It’s the person whose hope and trust is in Jesus. It is the person who has confessed with their mouth and believed in their heart that Jesus is Lord. That’s the righteous person.

Many people think that we are righteous by our good works, but that’s not even close to being true. We are only righteous because of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. How so? It was His blood that was shed on the cross to forgive us of our sin. It was the perfect body of Christ that was nailed to the tree. And we are only righteous because of Him.

So if a righteous persons prayer is powerful, it is the prayer that is made by a Christian because he isn’t praying on his own power, he is praying upon the power of Christ. Martin Luther said, “prayer moves the arm that moves the world.” When we pray, we don’t pray for our own will to be done or based upon our own power, we pray for God’s will to be done and we pray for the power of God to hear it and answer it.

Have you prayed about something and wondered why it wasn’t being answered? Was it because you were praying in our power? Did you think that you were capable of answering it? Did you not believe in Jesus at that time? Whatever the case may be, we need to understand that prayer does not get answered if it is not solely based upon Jesus. The only way prayer can be answered is by praying in the name of Jesus and relying upon His power. That’s the only way your prayers will be heard and effective.

Reflect: What should our prayers be centered around?

Request (Prayer): Ask for God to be glorified in your life and in everything you pray for.

John 14:13 says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

The whole idea behind prayer is not so we can get what we want, but to align our will and desires with God’s. What does that mean?

When we ask for things in life, a bike, new clothes, an upgraded cell phone, etc., we are desiring things that appeal to us. We are using the opportunity we have to tell our parents what we want and why we want, and usually we want what is desiring to our eyes. we don’t ask for more wisdom, more knowledge, a lot of times we just desire the things of this world.

Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in MY name, that will I do.” Jesus was explaining that He does not want us asking things in our own name (what we want), rather ask for the things that matter in life, more patience, kindness, and self-control. What do you desire in life? We don’t ask and pray to God so that we can be glorified, so that others can see us and give us glory or praise us, God wants the glory!

Is that newest gadget going to glorify God or yourself? Are those new shoes going to be used to make yourself popular or to make God popular? We need to really see the important things in life and how we can use things to glorify God through them.

If you can honestly say that the things you desire in life will glorify God than there should be no reason for you to feel ashamed of asking for that thing. But if your intention and desire is to use it to make yourself more popular than God, chances are, God will not give it to you because it is more for yourself than it is for God.

Desire the things of God and not of the world, for everything in the world is dying away, along with it’s desires, so seek God and His Kingdom and He will reward you. For further study read 1 John 2:15-17.

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Reflect: Do you have a desire to talk to God? What do you talk to Him about? What keeps you from talking to Him?

Request (Prayer): Ask the Lord to give you a passion for prayer.

Do you desire God? Do you look forward to spending time with God?

David was in the wilderness when he penned the words, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” I can only imagine how he could have felt, being in the wilderness, with no food or water, yet it allowed him to spend quality time with God and he was able to see his need for God.

I’m sure David was hungry and thirsty physically, and it was a fresh reminder to him how a person can become hungry and thirsty if they do not stay connected to God. Is this true of you?

The way we stay in touch with God is by communicating with Him. If we stop talking to God, and God stops talking to us, we won’t be up to date with God and all that we can know about Him.

Through the reading and studying of God’s Word, the Bible, God speaks to us. In prayer, we communicate to God. The big question is, “When was the last time you talked to God?” Have you been in a spiritual drought? Have you lost your communication with God? How do we get that back on track?

David realized in Psalm 63:3, “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” David understood that even if he were to die, he knew God’s love to be of more value than the very breath he had in his lungs. David had a close relationship with God because he was a person who prayed and knew God in a relationship.

Do you see God’s love for you greater than the very life you have? Today is a time where you can refocus your attention onto the things that matter, more so onto the person who matters the most, God. Will you do that today?

Cry out to God, repent of your sins and turn to Jesus! Spend time with Him in the Bible and spend time talking to Him through prayer! You won’t regret it!