"The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." James 5:16
What is a righteous man? And what is fervent prayer?
Please share the understanding God has revealed to you in this precious verse. Hope we can all receive light and faith regarding its truth.
here's just my opinion :
a righteous man I believe is someone walking in fellowship with Jesus and has left the world and it's ways. Or is attempting to do it.
James 4 v 8 Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners and Purify Your heart you double minded.
I believe the Lord hears fervent godly prayers. Prayed fervently from the heart that has become clean due to repentance.
A righteous man is the one who is following Christ wholeheartedly in all the areas of his life.
Fervent prayer to me appears to be a consistent prayer like the one that the poor window did in Luke 18.
The root of "fervent” means "to boil”.
So I take it to mean hot vs lukewarm praying. You know a fervent prayer when you hear it- but we more often hear tepid ones.
"The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." James 5:16
"What is a righteous man? And what is fervent prayer?"
What is a righteous man?
One walking with Christ, keeping instep with the Holy Spirit's direction.
What is fervent prayer?
Prayer that comes from deep within our spirit. Its real, living, breathing, vibrant in its accent to the Throne room of our Heavenly Father. Instead of dead and formalized.
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Amen to all, and looks at what's possible for that type pray of faith, shutting up the heavens of making it rain, and moving mountains and cursing fig trees its possible to them that believe.
My understanding of fervent prayer, knowing the thing you ask for is according to God's will,you pray until the answer is given. The conditions of all prevailing (answered) prayer are:
1. To God's glory. Meaning it is according to His will.
2. The asking is based on the merits of Jesus Christ alone. Jesus is our mediator between us and the Father. Your prayer is in His name, because only through Christ will the Father hear your prayers.
3. With faith, expecting to receive the thing you ask for.
4. Without sin on your conscience. If there is inquity in our heart, God does not hear us.
5. Preservance - pray until we receive the answer. Even if that means your entire life.
If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: (Psalm 66:18
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." (1 Peter 3:12)
"The heartfelt andpersistent prayer of a righteous man (believer) is able to accomplish much [when put into action and made effective by God””it is dynamic and can have tremendous power].” ( James 5:16) Amplified
Amen to the comments, another interesting thing is how do we know when its the will of God or the will man, or our own will , this is million-dollar question, because without that knowledge we will find it near impossible to believe so that we do indeed receive what it is we ask for, Jesus said this type of answered prayer requires us to have no doubts in our hearts. A little or tiny doubt is enough to undermine the whole prayer and create what James called double-mindedness. When we pray we do not want to insert an if into our minds when or after we pray about something, an if means we are not really sure if it is definitely God's will. We need to know for sure that it is God's will,and therefore, then we can be sure it will come to pass, or better still believe we already received the petitions that we have asked of God , and expectation then becomes our best friend. How can a man no gods will. It's simple really, pay no attention to us and look to god ......................rom 8 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words. 27And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
we out reject our old mind, the flesh and lets say our will Ephesians 6:18
Pray in the Spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition. To this end, stay alert with all perseverance in your prayers for all the saints. ......... we must walk in the spirit and all our prayers that the spirit induces come to pass, and we must understand this, also on the other hand, both our hands hold the sword of the spirit, is the gift of prophecy, that same spirit induces prophecy which is the other side of the golden coin of god, is how we grip onto our sword and this grip becomes unbreakable, we know that every prophecy that is inspired by God can be and should be and will be accompanied with groanings of his glorious spirit, and explodes into groning prayers, all we do then is believe trust expect and sprinkle it with hope, for who hope for what he can see, but we wait for it as a farmer waits for rain and the fruits of his labour., lets walk in Spirit brothers and we cant fulfil the lusts of the flesh, this is the new man .That which is born of god does not sin for god seed is in him an he can't sin , for he has been born of god ,says the apostal john.
An easy example is the area of healing. If someone is sick, how can we know if it’s "God’s will” that they be healed? We can’t. So we have to pray fervently assuming that it is because the second we allow the thought in our mind that it might not be God’s will then we can’t pray the prayer of faith. We will instead pray wishy washy prayers like "please heal so and so if it be your will.”
What kind of prayer is that? There is no boldness in it whatsoever. And we are to boldly approach the throne and ask like little children.
God can say no to a boldly prayed prayer. But I’d rather Him say "no” to a prayer of faith than a mealy-mouthed wimpy prayer.
God's words says that if our heart is set on doing His will (meaning, we only desire to do God's will whatever it may be) then we will know whether the teaching is of God or man (John 7:17). In practical experience, determining whether it is God's will comes with knowing God. What Christians fail to realize is that not only must the thing we ask for be according to God's will but the person asking as well. If one has not willingly surrendered their life to the Lord, and live for Him alone, it is in vain to try to determine God's will in an unknown matter simply because our heart will not be right with Him.
In Psalm 103:3 God's word says who "forgives all thine iniquities, who heals all thy diseases". That verse alone proves it is God's will to heal. What prevents healing is that one desires healing for self motives (James 4:3), we have sin in our heart (Psalm 68:18), we don't believe God is willing to heal us for healing is received according to one's faith (Matthew 9:29) or it is not yet God's time (one must preserve in prayer...God hastens it in His time Isaiah 60:22).
You may say well this answer does not help me one bit. And I would say Brother, it is in vain to try to seek to know the will of God but not know God Himself. Know God and you will know His will. Give your life to Him and you will know Him. He is worth more than all this life has to give. So precious and kind. His chastisements are really just His love to not let us go back to this world. Let us seek only Him, praise Him and love Him with our whole life. We have but one short life to sow and then we reap in eternity.
Amen dan
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