The Prayer of a Righteous Person

Reading daily devotions from Our Daily Bread, I was directed to read James 5. This passage deals with the prayer of a righteous man (person.) My reading this morning caused me to consider the connection between the prayer of a righteous person and its immediate context. The previous comment is about confessing sin to other believers and praying for each other. The prayer here is related to the confession of sin. It makes most sense that the prayer is for forgiveness of the confessing believer.

How interesting that I, along with most of Christendom, have applied this truth about prayer being powerful and effective to the accomplishing of signs and wonders.

Further challenge to my usual read, the reference to powerfully-praying Elijah points to binding and releasing. Elijah prayed and God bound up the regular rainfall. He prayed again and God released the pent-up precipitation. Our Lord Jesus Christ told Peter that, in connection to his confession of the God-revealed truth of Jesus' Divine Messiahship, He was issuing the "Keys to the Kingdom." With them Peter would bind and release things on earth in conjunction with them being bound/released in Heaven.

When we confess to a fellow believer, we see the sign of our forgiveness from our Heavenly Father in the face of our brother/sister.

Their prayer for us in this exposed, shame-filled and doubt-vulnerable moment binds up the power of the hidden sin to dominate our thoughts and behaviors. This praying brother/sister binds up our heart and spirit broken by the guilt of failure and breach of trust. They bind the ability of our Enemy to exploit our weakness into an enslaved cycle of defeat. We now have an ally in our personal struggle with temptation toward this sin.

Simultaneously to the binding power of prayer, this fellow Christ-follower at the time of our confession releases as well. We experience forgiveness as a release. We are set free from the culpability of our wrong--committed or omitted.  This prayer releases assurance of reconciliation into our spirit. A fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit empowers us to "go and sin [in this particular way] no more" as our sister/brother releases it in prayer.

One last touchpoint can be seen between the powerful prayer and confession of sin. The person declared powerful and effective in pray is the "righteous." James could have referred to a devout person or a Spirit-filled person or a gifted person or a believing person. His choice of righteous ties directly into the covenant of grace God offers through Jesus Christ. Righteous carries the connotation of "right behaving or rightly relating to the Law." This covenant keeper stands as a foil to the rule breaker.  The concern here is not miraculous proof of God, but rightly relating to God.

Elijah stood for God in the covenant of Sinai as he confronted Ahab, Jezebel and the 400 prophets (all who had abandoned YHWH for Baal) there on Mt. Carmel. The drought and the rain were a call to return to the LORD and renew the Covenant He offered. This call culminated in the challenge to follow whichever deity answered prayer by fire. While spectacular and miraculous, the emphasis of the passage is a renewal of covenant relations with the True and Living LORD.

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective in dealing with sin. God uses our Christian community to effect forgiveness and reconciliation. Let us all humbly open ourselves to this means of  grace so often abandoned by Protestantism.

Tim Is Back!

Tim Allen is a blessing. He has a true worshipper's heart. He is a student of the Word. He is passionate about his relationship with Jesus. He is an amazing talent.

Recently, he underwent open-heart surgery and spent a while recovering. This week he was back in force. He played through Simple Prayer a song by Scott Underwood which I personally love. The week and weekend had been stressful. But when I walked into the Worship Center of Faith and heard the guitar line for it, my heart melted.

He then asked that I sing it for church. Of course this put me on the spot. But I did first, because he had worked it out and second because it went with the "Give to Caesar what is his. Give to God what is His" sermon.

I thank God for our musicians and their heart to worship and lead!

The Blessings Continue

I found out this morning that my Bachelor +15 classification should result in a pay raise! AND, it should also mean a back-pay check to the effective date of my new WVDE credential! Wow! that is good news.

I still have a ways to go on my Multi-Categorical Certification and Masters Degree, but the long journey is progressing!

God is good to me in ways I could not begin to deserve. Chief among them is my wonderful wife who poured so much of herself into making my 40th birthday unforgettable. She is the joy in and love of my life!!! She has been so patient while I have been away in night courses or summer school and I want this new chapter of my life to bring her joy and return on her investment and sacrifice.

Lisa is the best and deserves the best in return!

Palm Sunday

On the way to church this morning, I opened the mail from the previous two days. I was away and could not do so Friday or Saturday.

The WV Department of Education has issued me a teaching credential for LD Special Education and Bachelor + 15 pay classification!!

I was ready to really wave those palm fronds as I thought of how God had just helped me find favor with the WVDE.

Our crowd was small, but my heart was full!!