12: Prayer, Healing, and Restoration – Thought Starters
[Thought questions for Prayer, Healing, and Restoration December 16, 2014]
Image © Darrel Tank from GoodSalt.com
1. Words with power. One of my favorite texts growing up in Sabbath school is this week’s memory text containing these words, “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” I repeated those words until they were embedded in my heart. But what did they mean? What is an effectual fervent prayer? Do only righteous people have the ability to pray such a prayer? That kind of prayer is strong and able to work miracles by the grace of God and able to “avail” good things. How can you and I pray a special prayer that “availeth much” that is good?
2. The Christian toolkit. Is your Sabbath school toolkit packed up and ready to reach others with God’s love? What is the tool we associate with suffering? (James 5:13) What tool do we take from our Sabbath school toolkit when we’re feeling joyful? (same reference) When you are especially blessed by a sermon or testimony of a fellow believer, can you draw from that experience yet another tool for your own personal Sabbath school toolkit? What are some examples of such tools that you’ve discovered?
3. Prayer for the sick. Have you ever been involved in a formal minister-led prayer for a believer who is sick? According to James 5:14-15, what role does sin and the way we deal with it play in the physical healing of a sick person? If healing follows a special prayer like this, can we be certain that the person who has experienced healing will be in heaven some day? Suppose that you are the sick one receiving the special oil and prayer. How will you benefit from this simple service?
4. Healing for the soul. If you could choose between being healed physically or obtaining the assurance of eternal life, what would be your choice? Do you think God ever sets before a man or a woman such a choice? Why or why not? Is every sickness rooted in sin? Does the evil one have anything to do with poor health and disease that strikes many good people today? How can you and I learn to be more like the paralyzed man in Mark 2, who longed for spiritual healing first and foremost?
5. Elijah tells us about praying. Did Elijah know his prayers would be answered before he prayed? Why is it important for you and me to base our prayers on Scripture? Elijah felt a tremendous burden to call Israel from apostasy. Do we have urgent spiritual needs today? Do God’s people face overwhelming temptations to slide away from God’s requirements and pray for what we want? Or are we so angry with our fellow believers that we want to scold them and prove them wrong? What kind of prayers does God long for most to go to Him from our hearts?
Joyce, when you asked, “What is an effectual fervent prayer? Do only righteous people have the ability to pray such a prayer?” it got me to think of two people in the New Testament. The first one is Cornelius, a man Heaven considered great (Acts 10:2-4) but probably not that much among the Jews because he was a centurion in the Roman army and the Jews hated the Romans. Besides, he was a filthy Gentile and Gentiles were not high on the list of spiritual celebrities in Jewish thinking. But Heaven was listening and something he was not specifically asking for was given to him by a loving God, “who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20 NKJV) for “the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8:26 NKJV).
Then there is the poor tax collector praying in the temple in one of Jesus’ parables (Lk 18:10-14. A Jew, yes, but despised as a traitor to the Jewish nation who taxed what was considered holy and therefore beyond taxation, besides that he sided with Rome for the sake of money. His prayer testified to the fact that he knew he was a sinner, a very unrighteous person indeed. Jesus said of him, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other” (Lk. 18:14 NKJV). The other was of course, a “righteous” Pharisee, a spiritual leader of the temple, one who was looked up to with great esteem as being a holy one of God.
So who gets his prayers answered? Only those who we think deserve it? For Jesus also said, “And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness” (Matt. 8:11-12 NKJV). Something for us to think about – I think.
The text refers specifically to the prayer of a righteous man: “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” James 5:16
But those “righteous” in the eyes of God are not necessarily righteous in our eyes. The tax collector who prayed that God be merciful towards him was righteous in God’s eyes. (Jesus said he went to his house “justified.”) And it seems to me that the same would be true for Cornelius who trusted in the mercy of God.
What an uplifting discourse Tyler Cluthe, many a times we have come to wonder whether we deserve to have our prayers answered. But as the scriptures say all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. However God is more than willing to answer the prayers of such sinful people as us, Psalms 51 v17 ” The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God , you will not despise.”
Mlungisi, as you have indicated, we do not “deserve to have our prayers answered.” But God certainly is merciful, desiring to lift us up from our unrighteousness.
Lord, help us to see our need, to seek Your face, and to do Your will.