March 17: James 5:13-18

Key Verse: James 5:17
Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.

Devotion:
One of the things we are taught to do as a Christian is to pray. This is not as a plea when everything else has failed, but as a daily and constant occurrence whereby you are taking your ideas, worries, needs and praise to God. No matter how many times it is said, we tend to allow our prayer life to fade as time goes by – because we get comfortable in the position we reach and in our relationship with God. Well, just like any relationship, you cannot just ignore your partner and expect them to carry on doing everything you want them to do without reciprocating the deeds!

Elijah showed the power of prayer by praying for a lack of rain (which lasted over three years) and then praying for rain to revive the crops. Both prayers were answered by God – not in the way which everyone wanted them to be answered, but in the way the man of God asked. Everyone else had allowed their prayer life to become cold and unresponsive.

It is at times like this when we have a global pandemic where people are going to wake up to the fact they have allowed their prayer life to go cold. It is times like this when new people are going to call out to God in desperation. God is listening to each and every prayer and is judging each of those prayers according to their sincerity – not according to the authority of the figure asking, but the sincerity of the person asking.

God wants us to be honest with Him. He wants us to be humble in our dealing with Him and the people around us. No matter what we have done in our lives and how far we think we have wandered away from God – He is listening to each one of your prayers and will answer them according to His pure and holy judgement. We can do wonderful and amazing things through prayer – I know they work because I have been on both the asking/pleading end and receiving answered prayers end. God can do immeasurably more than we can imagine – we need to ask in faith and expect the answer!

Points to Ponder:
What do you think happens to your prayers?

What is your attitude to prayer?