SCRIPTURE: Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. James 5:16 NIV
Click here: National Day of Prayer, find an event.
Also, My Faith Votes has created a .pdf with suggestions for holding your own event at your church or with your small group, click here: organize and execute a successful event.
THOUGHT: Sometimes we see that “righteous” word and check out. Who could ever be righteous? It sounds a little high-and-mighty, like something that would make us judgmental or snobby, right? But that’s self-righteousness!
Stop for a moment and consider the vast difference between the two words – it’s almost as far as the east is from the west.
James describes a process by which our prayers become powerful and effective, and it’s not the process a self-righteous person would use. 1. Confess your sins to each other (when is the last time you participated in that?). 2. Pray for each other (knowing the deep needs, pain and confession of another). 3. Be healed (physically or spiritually – same word used in 1 Peter 2:24, “By his wounds you were healed.”)
This is James’ Rx for being “righteous,” or in right-standing with God. Because once that process has been done, the righteousness of a perfect, extravagant, agape-loving Father is wrapped around us like a robe. Our prayers flow from humble hearts, sounding more like “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” than anything else (Luke 18:14).
And that’s the kind of prayer God can hear and answer.
PRAYER: Oh God, we come to you a nation in need of confession, repentance, and your great righteousness. Forgive us for the sin that litters our landscape, and our hearts. Set us right with you, so that our prayers may be powerful and effective.
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