A few years ago I was praying with the intercessors at my church. We meet on Sunday mornings during first service. We were praying for different people and situations at the church, but it seemed (to me) that our hearts weren't in it like they should have been.
Then someone entered the room and said there was an accident in front of the church. They asked us to pray, however, they didn't have many details about the accident. With that request, the fervor and temperature of our prayer changed. We became highly motivated: someone's life might be in jeopardy; there is an immediate need.
My thought was, "we should have been praying like that about the other situations."
Some days are like that. There are many things to pray about, but sometimes our hearts are not into praying about everything with the highest priority and energy. But when someone's life could depend on our prayers or if there is an immediate/desperate need, our energy for prayer tends to increase.
What would happen if you prayed like your/someone's life depended on it? What would happen if you prayed with fervor? The last part of James 5:16 tells us:
The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. James 5:16b NKJV
These words effective and fervent mean having energy/showing power. Plus fervent implies heat or boiling. Fervor is an attitude of the heart. It is the passion that is the difference between praying for a hurt toe and praying for someone at death's door.
The Amplified Bible translates this part of the verse like this:
The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working]. James 5:16b AMP
This kind of prayer with passion and according to the Word, of course, is dynamic and powerful and makes dynamic and powerful answers available. But hurt toe or life and death. Should our intensity in prayer be different if we want all of our prayers to be answered? Maybe the toe example is not the best, but my point is: should some prayers have less importance and therefore deserve less energy? I don't know the answer to this. We'll have to pray about it together. But I do believe if we're going to pray about anything, we should always pray like we want God to respond.
Pray with me (with passion):
Father, I love You and bless Your name. Thank You Lord. I just want to say thank You for a minute. . .
There is so much to learn about prayer – not that it's difficult, but You have given us many promises about prayer -- so many promises that show us that answering our prayer is important to You. Since it's important to You, I want to know how to pray correctly and effectively. My life depends on this. My life depends on my communication with You because You are my life. I want to pray and speak with You in Your way. Please help me to recognize my assumptions about prayer. I also need to recognize my presumptions about prayer. You invented prayer, not I. I dare not pretend to know everything or think that whatever I deem correct is acceptable to You. Your ways are higher than my ways. Help me to learn Your way of prayer – the way that pleases You. Please teach me how and when to pray fervently. Are there times when my prayers should be more passionate or fervent than others? I feel like the answer is "no,"
but I need the Truth. Thank You Father for helping me, for teaching me, and for being patient with me. Thank You that I can pray to You in Jesus' name. Amen.
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