Prayer is Powerful and Effective
By Senior Pastor Prince Guneratnam
James says, “The prayer of a
righteous man is powerful and effective” (James
There are three kinds of
righteousness. The first is self-righteousness. A self-righteous person depends
on his works. He does not need to believe in God, he has good principles and he
could even be religious and generous. But the Bible tells us in Isaiah 64:6,
that “all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts
are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins
sweeps us away.” This kind of righteousness cannot stand in the presence of
God. An example of this is Cain, who believed in his own good works and was
rejected by God.
The second of righteousness also
depends on works. It is a righteousness in which a person tries to justify
himself by being religious. He buffets himself by putting hooks or piecing his
body and does all kinds of things as a penance for his sins. Jesus describes
this type of righteousness as being religious. The Scribes and the Pharisees
were like this for they were very concerned about keeping the letter of the
law. Religiosity cannot make us righteous before God. Romans
There is a third kind of
righteousness and this is the only kind that is acceptable to God. We cannot
boast about it because it is not something we can produce by ourselves. It is
the righteousness that comes by faith as we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We simply accept the finish work of Jesus who died on the cross. There is no
other way we can be saved except by accepting the Son of God as our Sin-bearer
or Saviour. The Bible says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no
other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts
Righteousness begins in your
heart. In Abraham’s time, there was no law to qualify him as righteous. He only
had a believing heart. Because of his faith, he was considered righteous before
God.
Romans 10:9 and 10 say, “if you confess
with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believed in your heart that God raised
him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you
believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are
saved.” If we believe in our hearts and confess our faith in the Lord Jesus, He
will cleanse us from our sins. Therefore, there is nothing we can do to merit
righteousness. It begins with the heart
of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We continue to be righteous by being filled
with the Holy Spirit daily and living in obedience of the Word of God. The
Bible says, “Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit” (Zechariah 4:6).
What makes a person unclean? Jesus
had an answer to this question. He said that it was not what entered a man from
outside that made him ‘unclean’ but what came out of him (Mark 7:18, 20). “For
from within, out of man’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft,
murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and
folly. All these evil comes from inside and make a man unclean’ ” (Mark
What defiles a man does not come
from the outside but from inside. Righteousness begins with the heart. Is your
heart right with God? If you want
prayers to be powerful and effective, you need to be righteous before God. How can you be righteous? David gives us the
answer – it is a clean heart. His secret is found in Psalms 139:23, 24, “Search
me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts, see if
there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.” David
understood that righteousness had to start from the heart. He was known as the
man after God’s own heart. We can note five things in the prayer. Firstly, he
asked God to search his heart. Secondly, he allowed God to test him. Thirdly,
he demonstrated humility and courage in praying this prayer. Fourthly, he had a
real hunger and thirst for God. Finally, this is a personal prayer. Each of us
needs to come personally before God. No one can do this on our behalf.
(All the above quotations are from the New International Version.)
Issue 44, March – April 1997