'Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you ill? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
'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. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.' (James 5.13-18, NIV.)
There’s a need for great power in prayer! Power, when we pray! I’m very specific when I pray, I bring very specific questions – and I get very strong answers.
I find it interesting in the Bible that when God was dealing with people, so many times He would meet them on the mountain – like He did with Moses on Mount Sinai and Elijah on Mount Carmel and Horeb. Even Jesus would come away from His disciples and go up the mountain to pray to His Father. I like to go 10,000 feet, 3000 metres, up the mountains – that’s high! However, I can’t honestly say that you are physically nearer to God the higher you go… He’s Spirit, He’s not ‘up there’! But I enjoy these special times of prayer. I used to go to the mountains once a year, but now I go twice a year – to Switzerland in the winter and to Austria in the summer.
But whether on the mountain or in the valley, I need special times of prayer. And all my life, when I’ve come to the Lord in prayer with very strong objectives, I’ve received powerful and unusual answers! Most of you know, twice I was healed of cancer. In 1964 it was throat cancer. It was an incredible miracle, because the doctors said they could see where ‘somebody had cut it out with a knife’! It was the Hand of God! In answer to prayer! Twenty-two years ago, I had lung cancer – it came out of my mouth! One of the greatest miracles I’ve experienced was the way God released me from a communist prison – He actually showed me in a dream, six months in advance, the date of my release – Easter 1973! But having received that promise, I had the audacity to ask Him to work an even bigger miracle and send me home on my birthday, which was a few days before Easter that year. As I prayed into it, God confirmed it from Scripture... And that’s exactly what happened. I flew home on my birthday – with British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson!
James 5.16 says the ‘effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails.’ This is the forceful, powerful prayer of an ‘ordinary’ righteous man! It works! The original Greek New Testament has two words for power: energeo and dunamis. Our praying HAS to be strong! It must generate effective energy like a dynamo and like dynamite – an explosive that, when placed against a wall, does not waste its energy on the air, but pushes the hard obstacle down! In coal mining they use it to blast tunnels through solid rock!
James is giving us a powerful description of what prayer should be like! It should have an objective, either to generate energy like a dynamo, or like dynamite, to break and remove the obstacle! This is how I see and use prayer in my ministry, and why I see so many unusual miracles.
This does not mean that my ordinary, everyday prayer for my family and daily circumstances changes, no. But this is my fighting, overcoming, face-to-face-with-God call for Power! That’s when the miracles happen!
Jesus said in John 14:12ff, “If you believe in Me, you will do the SAME Works I do, and GREATER Works, because I go to My Father. And whatsoever you ask in My Name, I WILL DO IT!” Jesus promises to answer your prayer Himself. Why? In order to glorify the Father through YOU. Prayer is not some formality, wishful thinking, or empty repetition. Jesus said, “WHATSOEVER you ask in My Name, I WILL DO IT!” Ask Jesus, ask the Father in His Name. Why do people pray to Mary and the saints? Scripture says they are ‘asleep in Christ’, waiting for the bodily Resurrection, when the dead whose names are written in the Book of Life shall rise first, and we who are alive shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air! Daniel 12:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17. But at this moment in time, Jesus alone is alive bodily in Heaven, the Firstfruits of the dead. 1 Corinthians 20. He alone is able to answer your prayer. Hebrews 7:25.