It’s tragic how easily we can miss the main ingredient in effective prayer.
In our sin, we’ve been rewired to focus on us — on the steps we should take for our prayers to be heard. We have this bent toward believing that every result is born from method. If something works for somebody we want to know what that somebody is doing.
We’ve developed the assumption that if we can just strip it all down to a reproducible process to put into action, then the results will multiply. While this applies to certain things, it doesn’t apply to prayer — or at least that’s not the vision the apostle James gives us. The main ingredient in effective prayer is emphatically not us.
Often Misunderstood
Many of us find James 5:16 to be a familiar verse: “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” — which is also translated, as an ESV footnote spells out, “The effective prayer of a righteous person has great power.”
This is one of those coffee-mug verses. It’s commonly understood like this: Be righteous and your prayers will work. It’s what I used to think. But that’s the skim-milk meaning. It’s what happens when we fly by the text without questions. Our broken bent is to make the burden of this passage something to do with us. We simply settle to think that if we want our prayers to be effective then we need to be righteous.
But this reading doesn’t hold up.
Reading in Context
First, look at the context surrounding verse 16. James’s whole point is that prayer iseffective. He asks in verse 13, “Is anyone among you suffering?” Then he replies, “Let him pray.” What about cheerfulness? Or sickness? Or sin? In each case, James encourages his readers to pray. Why? Because prayer is effective, which means, God hears his people and acts on their behalf.
Then in the beginning of verse 16, because prayer is effective (verses 13–15), he says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). To make it even clearer, he follows this with, “The effective prayer of a righteous person has great power.” That line is the second portion in a double dose of support for our praying. James’s point is to repeat his theme to pray because prayer is effective. His concern is not how prayer is made effective, but that prayer is effective. And then verse 17 comes to ground that point.
What About Elijah?
Verse 17 then brings in Elijah. “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours and he prayed fervently . . .” (James 5:17).
What does Elijah have to do with our praying? Does it mean that Elijah was righteous and his prayers worked so we should be like Elijah for our prayers to work too? Is that what he is saying?
No way.
Look at the Book. James says that Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. He was just a man. He was like us. He had a nature like ours. And being just a man, being like us, having a nature likes ours, he prayed fervently and God heard. The point is not that we should be righteous at the extraordinary level of an Elijah, but that he was normal like you and me. James doesn’t say for us to be like Elijah for our prayers to be answered but that Elijah was like us and his prayers were answered — therefore pray.
Don’t Miss What’s Main
This means that the locus of effective prayer is not us, but God. Prayer has less to do with the specifics of how we say what we say, and more to do with the one to whom we are saying it.
We pray as ordinary people who have an extraordinary God. We’re just normal, you and I. We’re just normal like Elijah. Prayer is effective, not because of great men who pray, but because of a great God who in Christ graciously hears his people.
He’s the main ingredient. So pray.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:7–12)
This has proved, in my experience, to be one of the most motivating passages in all the Bible to pray with the confidence of being answered.
It’s an argument. Even bad dads give good things to their children when they ask. God is not a bad dad. He’s the best. Therefore, much more will he give good things to his children when we ask. I love that argument. Jesus really did want us to feel hopeful when we pray. He is trying to overcome our skepticism about prayer.
There’s another reason why this is so encouraging for our prayers. He says that a good dad gives “good things” to his children when they ask for what they want. He does not say that he always gives these little children precisely what they ask for. What father ever does? Or ever would? We love our children too much for that.
One time when my son Ben was three or four, he asked for a cracker for snack time. I opened the box and found that they were moldy. I said, “I’m sorry, you can’t eat these. They are covered with fuzz.” He said, “I’ll eat the fuzz.” But I said no. He was not happy, but I loved him and would not give him a fuzzy cracker, no matter how much he pleaded.
So when Jesus says he will give good things, he means that. Only good things. And only he knows ultimately what is good for us. And notice, when he says dads don’t give stones when asked for bread, he does not say dads always give bread. Just no stones. And when he says, dads don’t give snakes for fish, he does not say dads always give fish. Just no snakes.
The point is this: God ignores no prayers from his children. And he gives us what we ask for, or something better (not necessarily easier), if we trust him.
One more point: The word “so” at the beginning of verse 12 means that verse 12 is an inference from this teaching on prayer. “So” — since God always gives you what you need when you ask — “whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” In other words, because God loves and cares for you so much, you will be able to care about others the same way you care about yourself. Which means that confidence in prayer is one of the keys to love.
Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring;
For His grace and power are such,
None can ever ask too much.