The letter of James to the church in the New Testament is a very interesting, if not blunt piece of correspondence. Amongst all that the elder has to say, he mentions prayer and how potent it is when offered by the righteous believer. He says,
James 5:16
“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.”
The key reason for weak and ineffectual prayer – apart from not praying, at all – is because we collect sin rather than deal with it. It accumulates. Some believers think they can maintain a sinful lifestyle and have an effective and strong prayer life at the same time. That is not possible. Why? James emphasises the prayers coming from a righteous person. That is, prayer that is offered up by the believer who is constantly and carefully dealing with their sin so that it does not sandbag their spirit by allowing soul to overwhelm it.
As I have often repeated of late, our sanctified spirit is supreme in our tripartite being of spirit, soul and body. It is the sanctified dwelling place of Holy Spirit. If we allow sin to go unaddressed it accumulates allows our soul to gain ascendency over our sanctified spirit which renders our prayers soulish and, therefore, ineffective and seriously lacking in power. The whole point of confessing our sins as ones born again is to walk in righteousness so that our spirit can fully and properly and powerfully function. And so, “the prayer of righteous person is powerful and effective”. The opposite is true, too. The prayers of the unrighteous person are not powerful and anything but effective. So, dealing with sins promptly – keep a short account with the Lord – keeps our soul from unruliness and our spirit fully functioning and in charge.
This is especially true when it comes to spiritual warfare, and is precisely why the apostle Paul said this …
Ephesians 6:18
“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people.”
Now, just a little bit of grammar here which I hope is helpful. The actual text says “and pray in spirit on all occasions”; even though most translations state “in the Spirit” (capitalising the word spirit to refer to Holy Spirit and using the word “the” as a prefix to emphasise the point. The “the” is not in the text) - it is not (the) Holy Spirit being referred to here, but our sanctified spirit. In other words, don’t bother with soulish prayers – they just don’t work. Our praying must be done “in spirit” not in flesh or soul (soulish praying is never sanctified and cannot work). It is “in spirit” that we powerfully tackle spiritual (and every other kind of) issues. “on all occasions” is just another way of saying “whenever” you pray – there is no other way to pray.
There you have it. When we pray, let us not let unaddressed, unaccounted for, accumulated sin to keep our soul overactive and rebellious – operating against our spirit. Remember soul and flesh, by themselves, are hostile to God. They need the righteousness that has been given to us in Christ to direct the thoughts and will of our minds, and govern the desires of our flesh. Remember, too, that the righteous person is the one born again with spirit, soul and body functioning properly as God originally intended. We walk in righteousness, by faith, which is what walking in spirit really is. We can’t do that if we keep messing with sin and walking in unrighteousness (a state where sin accumulates so much that it impairs the pure operation of our spirit).
The Christian pays a heavy price, indeed, when they keep on sinning, and thinks that God will make an exception for them. He won’t. He didn’t make exceptions of Moses, David or anyone else.
1 John 1:7-9 “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin. 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Stay righteous. Keep praying. In spirit. The prayers of the righteous person (the fully operational spiritual person) are potent, indeed, and accomplish enormous things – and the enemy fears that. Why do you think he is always tempting believer to sin? He needs us weak and ineffective. Don’t be that believer.
Meditate on these things … because that’s how it is.
Ps Milton