WORD STUDY – FERVENT PRAYER
‫חילה צלתא‬
James 5:16 Confess [your] faults one to another, and pray one
for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent
prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
This morning during my first bus run I was waiting for a light
when I noticed a middle aged woman trying to help an elderly
man balance some packages. She was just a plain ordinary
looking woman dressed in some sort of fast food uniform. She
is someone that would not turn any heads and no one would give
her a second or even a first notice. Yet, as she looked up and
I saw her face, I saw a glow, a light of sorts, for that
moment she was more beautiful than a Hollywood starlet. The
look on her face was true compassion and empathy. At that
moment you could not believe that she had a selfish bone in
her body.
I instantly thought how my next pick up was the Town’s
Sorehead and how I hated and dreaded this next ride. I was
instantly filled with shame and self-condemnation over my
attitude toward my next unpleasant passenger. Yet, try as I
might, I just cannot muster a sense of empathy or compassion
for her. I could not let my light shine as this woman on the
street corner was shining her Light, glowing actually with the
Light of Jesus. I cried out to God, “Why can I not show such
compassion, Why do I always have to fake it.
At my next break I shot off an email to someone whose husband
was in the hospital and asked, more out of duty, how he was
doing and assuring her of my prayers, although they were not
really fervent prayers.
As I hit the send button I said to God, “This is ridiculous.
Did my prayers really do any good. I mean I hardly even know
this man and I am not even sure if I care about him. I think I
was just praying for him because it was my duty as a
Christian. Maybe I felt sorry for his wife and kids, I don’t
know. Lord, do you really hear such prayers?”
I was alone in the bus, on my way to pick up the Town’s
Sorehead. As I was driving to her house suddenly I broke down
weeping, deep heavy surges of grief, sorrow and heartbreak
flowed up out of me. I knew and recognized that Jesus had
again allowed me to enter that special room in His heart, that
weeping room and that He was calling me to keep a promise I
made a couple years ago during my time of silence. If He
would weep with me when my heart was broken, I would weep with
Him when His heart was broken. I knew these were not my tears,
it was not my grief or heartbreak that produced these tears.
What I was feeling was the grief, sorrow and broken heart of
Jesus as he wept over a heart He held in His nailed pierced
hand in that weeping room of His heart. I pulled into the
parking area of a shopping center and closed my eyes and in my
mind’s eye I saw Jesus holding this heart. I recognized it to
be the heart of this man, this husband, this father that I had
tried to pray for and feel an empathy for. As I reached out
and touched the nail pieced hand of Jesus I instantly broke
down and wept again, deep heavy weeping. I felt the grief and
sorrow that Jesus felt for this person. In the midst of that
weeping I cried out the most fervent prayer I had ever prayed
for this man. For now it was just not a broken hearted wife,
children and a broken man that I prayed for, it was also the
broken heart of the Jesus that I love. One of the most painful
experiences we can have is when someone we love has a broken
heart. When Jesus’s heart is broken, it is a very painful
experience.
More painful is knowing that you caused that
broken heart, which, thankfully was not the situation for me
at this moment
In my spirit I heard Jesus say: “Confess [your] faults one to
another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” I
think I am beginning to understand this verse. So I confess my
faults to you. The word in the Greek for effectual fervent is
energeo. It doesn’t take a linguist to tell us what English
word comes from that. It is what flows through a wire that
brings a light bulb to shine. We call it energy. It is a
powerful force. Scientist tell us that when a person dies that
life force or energy leaves the body. As energy cannot be
destroyed, as any high school physics student will tell you,
then it has to go somewhere. Heaven?
Anyways, that is what
our English translations tell us effectual fervent is, it is a
release of energy.
The Aramaic Bible says, “great is the power of prayer that a
just man prays for him.” That word for power is chaylah and is
a word used for a powerful army, great strength and is even
used in extra Biblical literature for a miracle. Great is the
miraculous prayer of the righteous man. Or Great is the army
of prayer of the righteous man. The word great in Aramaic is
raba which is the same word for rabbi, but has multiple
meanings. One meaning is a great wonder.
I mean you get a righteous person praying for you, then you
have a miraculous prayer filled with wonder. So the key is to
be a righteous person.
What does that mean.
The word
righteous or just in the Aramaic here is tsaddik, just like in
the Hebrew.
A tsaddik is one who is purified, justified,
vindicated one who is doing what is right and truthful. Oops,
I was doing ok until that truthful part.
So the secret to prayer is not praying with great passion or
emotion, but praying with a right heart and in truth. I have a
real problem with praying in public.
I want to impress
everyone with my passion and emotional prayer. Thus most the
time in public prayer I pray with a passion and emotion that
is fake. It is not truthful. I pretend to really care about
what I pray, but in truth I care more what people think of me.
That is not praying in truth and I fear that prayer is not
going to accomplish chaylah, great miracles.
I really, truly want to see a miracle in the life of this
family that I am praying for, but heck, I don’t know if I am
being totally honest about my passion or not. Maybe I want to
see the miracle so I can say that I was the one who prayed for
it so everyone will think me holy and pious and fill my email
box with prayer request. Maybe even write a book about my
ability to pray down miracles.
How can I pray a righteous prayer for someone, pray with true
passion not a phony look at me emotion? I think I understand
why Jesus has allowed me to enter his heart and the weeping
room.
Years ago when I was a pastor I attended a funeral for a young
woman. A friend, a close friend of this woman was standing
over her coffin weeping. Her husband approached his weeping
wife. The couple were members of my church and I knew that
this man barely knew the woman who had passed away, she was
his wife’s friend not his, so he was not feeling the grief as
the others were feeling nor as his wife felt. Yet, I watched
as he took his wife in his arms and whispered something to
her. I then saw this man also weep. I knew he did not wept
for any loss he felt, but he wept for his wife’s loss, her
grief and sorrow. He was feeling and sharing her pain.
How can we sincerely and fervently pray for someone we barely
know? Jesus knows them, he loves them passionately and when
you enter the heart of Jesus as this man entered his wife’s
heart and wept, you too will weep maybe not for that person
but because you feel God’s heart and you are weeping with the
God you love and for His broken heart. Yet, it is your prayer
of intercession that God can use to avail much to chaylah
bring a miracle.
So be watching our website, I will soon offer an online class
on how to enter God’s heart and enter that weeping room so you
too can pray an effective prayer, it will only cost….
Ridiculous isn’t it.
You instinctively know that this is
something that cannot be taught anymore than I can teach
someone to love. If I had such a class it would consist of
only one sentence: “If you love Him enough, He will share His
heart with you.”
Oh, by the way when I arrived at the house of the Town
Sorehead she said she was cancelling her ride. As I walked
back to my bus I looked up and said: “Hallelujah.” I fear
that might have been a misplaced hallelujah.