A Prayer Life That Moves Heaven - Zac Acosta

In this powerful session of the Apostolic Prayer Pattern series, Zac explores what it means to pray effectively and develop a prayer life that truly moves heaven. Drawing from James 5:13-18, this teaching unpacks the connection between faith, righteousness, and answered prayer.

Key topics covered:

• Why prayer is the proper response to every circumstance—whether suffering, joyful, or somewhere in between
• The transformative power of singing your prayers and engaging with God through worship
• Biblical principles for praying for healing and when to involve community
• The often-overlooked connection between confession, humility, and breakthrough
• How living in righteousness amplifies the effectiveness of our prayers
• Learning from Elijah's example: how ordinary people can pray extraordinary prayers

This episode challenges listeners to move beyond mechanical prayer into authentic connection with God, combining earnest faith with practical wisdom. Whether you're new to prayer or have been praying for years, you'll find fresh insights on partnering with God's heart and seeing real results in your prayer life.

Perfect for anyone seeking to deepen their relationship with God and experience more breakthrough through prayer.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey everyone, it's so good to be with you again. This is Zach here. I'm excited to bring you the next session here in our Apostolic Prayer Pattern series. It's been an awesome series so far and looking at Bible verses in the New Testament that give us a sort of pattern for prayer, and they teach us how how to pray and what the Bible um calls us to as those that are living in the extended New Testament era, so to speak, that are uh are people committing to prayer. And today, I want to talk about a prayer life that moves heaven. I want to talk about praying effectively. And in last week's session, we briefly touched James chapter five, which talks a lot about prayer. And James is writing that sort of at the end of his life when he's mature and has all of this wisdom, and he goes on this short section teaching about the effectiveness in prayer. And as somebody who devotes a lot of hours of just about every week of my life to prayer, I want my prayers to be effective. I don't want to just go to a prayer room. I don't want to just have a prayer life where I'm just doing it empty and not seeing results and not seeing answers and not getting connected to the Lord. And I really want effective prayer. So I want to talk a little bit about effective prayer, prayer lives that move heaven. We'll look at James 5, verses 13 to 18 today. It says, Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He's to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will restore the one who's sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he's committed sins, they'll be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. A prayer of a righteous person, when it's brought about, can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. So I think our first point today is talking about praying in every circumstance. James here lists a few circumstances, but here's the point whether we're suffering, whether we're cheerful, and anywhere in between that, I believe James is telling us that we need to be a people of prayer. He says, Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? Then he's to sing praises. Singing praises is just another expression of prayer. Throughout the New Testament, it teaches that prayer is the proper response to every single circumstance. No matter what circumstance of life that we face, prayer is always a good answer, especially when we're suffering, and especially when we're going through hardship. Prayer transforms our trials in at least two different ways. So when we're suffering hardship, we're going through difficult things, prayer can certainly um change the circumstances, change the situation. There can be a breakthrough and things that seemed impossible are now not, or when we were once suffering, maybe in a moment peace comes over us, or or uh we get a joyful spirit or something like that. That can happen. Or another thing that can happen is that simply God's presence gets brought into whatever circumstance we're facing. Regardless if that's suffering, hardship, or if it's somewhere in between, prayer simply invites the presence of God to come and be where we're at. Now, here's the reality of the Christian life. Suffering, it's inevitable. I'm sorry to tell you that. Sorry to deliver some difficult news, but suffering is inevitable for believers. Look at what the Bible says about this. 2 Timothy 3, verse 12 says, Indeed, all who want to live a godly way in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. That's one of those verses you probably don't want to get tattooed on you. You know, it's not like your life verse that you want to get tattooed on you. Uh 1 Peter 4, 12 through 13 says, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though something strange were happening to you. Peter's like, guys, this is not out of the ordinary for you to be suffering, for you to be going through fiery testing. This is not something that's out of the ordinary. He says, But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that at the revelation of his glory you may also rejoice and be overjoyed. So we can't escape hardship. We can't escape suffering. This is a part of the Christian life. Paul himself even desired to know both Christ's resurrection power and to fellowship in his sufferings. It's what Paul said, he counted everything else as lost for, that he would know Christ and not just know him by understanding the scriptures, but Paul really wanted to know the greatness of his power and also wanted to fellowship with Christ in his sufferings, even being conformed to the point of death. It's what Paul talks about in Philippians chapter three. So I think that when we pray out of our struggle, when we're in hard times and we begin to pray, we actually begin tapping into this lifestyle. It's like a well that we're tapping into of overcoming. We learn to be overcomers. And how many of you know that in this hour of history, like in this uh 21st century, if you're a Westerner here in America or wherever you might be, it's really easy to just have things handed to us, uh, whatever we need. If that's I think in the last session I talked about reaching for the medicine cabinet when I'm sick. So easy when I get got a headache, I just go grab the ibuprofen, or um, if there's a difficult scenario, I could almost pay my way out, pay somebody to do the hard things around my house for me, or whatever I need to do, it's so easy and accessible to escape hard and difficult things. But I believe it's those hard and difficult things that bring us to the end of ourselves and cause us to remember that we actually are fully dependent on Jesus. Without him, we really can't do a whole lot. So when we are in these places of hardship and we begin to pray, we tap into this overcoming lifestyle where we're faced with our own human limitation and we begin to discover the power and the authority of God. And that's the lifestyle I think that we all want to live. We all want to see God's power manifest in our lives. We all want to see breakthrough in the situations and the circumstances that we face. Romans 5, Paul says, not only this, but we also celebrate in our tribulations. Like Paul gets joyful in his tribulations. When's the last time you face something really hard, a trial or a test, and you're like, come on, let's throw a party, let's celebrate. I don't know the last time I did. Paul's thinking a little differently than I think. He says, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance, proven character, and proven character, hope. And hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has who was given to us. Oh, I love this verse. We pray this verse often in our prayer room that when we face tribulation and when we face hard things, God is actually forming something on the inside of us. He's doing something on the inside of us. And guys, here's what's awesome. We don't have to go through that trial alone. God is not testing us outside of his own grace and his own mercy. He's not like standing far off saying, Well, I'm gonna watch and see how they uh go through this trial, go through this tribulation. No, God is looking at us intently, waiting for the moment where we would admit weakness and volunteer our limitation and invite him into the process. That's the beauty of prayer. And sometimes when we do that, we get we get the breakthrough. Sometimes when we do that, we see circumstances change, and other times when that happens, we just get God's presence, which is really all that we're after, anyway. It's really our one pursuit, anyway. And so even if circumstances don't change, if things don't transform in a moment, God shows up, and that changes everything for us. When he's there, that changes everything. Then James starts to talk about singing praises. If anyone is cheerful, sing praises. This is an expression of prayer, and I think it's a fitting response for someone who's happy. I think of my wife, who, as long as I've known her, when she's like in a very happy or giddy mood, she's just singing these little songs. Or think of my daughter, who is always singing. She's a singer, and no matter what what happy scenario happens, we'll be driving in the car, and you know, we need to stop somewhere for dinner. And I'd say probably eight times out of ten, it ends up being Taco Bell. And my daughter, Sayla, she loves Taco Bell, and so she'll start singing her Taco Bell song in the backseat. Taco Taco Bell. Taco Taco. And it's she's so cheerful, she's so happy. I think that when we are living in moments of joy, in moments of breakthrough, and moments of cheerfulness, we should sing. And our prayers of of that are songs, they they they're not disconnected from God. Like when we sing, we can actually sing to the Lord. And and our little simple songs singing about whatever it is, they can be songs of gratitude and prayerful songs to the Lord throughout the Bible. We could probably spend days and weeks looking at all of the verses and scriptures that command us to sing and command us to make worship, invite us to sing, invite us to um make melody and make music. And so I charge you today, invite you, I challenge you with the words of scripture to be somebody who sings, who, as part of your prayer life, sing. It makes it more enjoyable. That's why in our prayer room, we have music going the entirety of our prayer meeting. And we have somebody who it's their dedicated job for that hour of prayer to sing, to create choruses and lead the room in singing their prayers to God. It's valuable. I always, always mention the quote from St. Augustine when he said, He who sings prays twice. And of course, I don't really know if that's how it works. Maybe it does, but I think what Saint Augustine recognized was that singing engages more than just like going through the religious motions and praying the the right prayers and saying the right things and doing it with the the very legalistic way. Singing engages your mind, it engages your heart, it engages your your thoughts and your desire. Music moves your heart. I can get on a tangent on this forever, and I'll I'll spare you that for another time. But music engages the person that God has made you to be. Like you enjoy music. It's so rare. There's some people out there, I've encountered a few of them, and I don't know if I believe them, but it's so rare to find somebody who genuinely doesn't like music, who is not moved moved by music. Because singing and music, it connects us with God in a greater way. He surrounds himself with music. In the throne room pictures, we see angels singing and sounds and a symphony of heaven that's all happening, and it helps us relate to him. He he is he's chosen to surround himself with melody. So when we lift our voices in a cheerful season, and even if it's not a cheerful season, I even think in the hard moments in tribulation, in trial, we can lift our our songs to the Lord as prayers before him. And it takes us from the mechanics of prayer, the the mechanicalism, if that's even a word, and brings it again to a place where we're raw and authentic before God. One of the first uh instances within Scripture where we see music and we see music involved with worship is when the Israelites cross the Red Sea and God delivers them from Egypt by splitting the sea. It's in an incredible scene. If you've never s never read that before, go read it. But immediately after they get to the other side of the of the sea, Miriam and Moses begin to sing these songs. It's like this this outburst of joy that that the entire nation begins to sing. It's the song of deliverance. God has delivered us. He's he's thrown this horse and its rider into the sea. It's this testimony of what God has done, this cheerful song that's proclaiming what God just did. And I think that that song of deliverance is one of the things that transformed the worship of God's people forever. Then we see David come onto the scene who institutes worship and singing and melody as the national form of worship in his tabernacle. And even today at church services, we we most often lead off our worship services with songs and with singing and with melody. I believe that's who we are as the people of God, is to sing and we can sing our prayers. Psalm 147.7 says, sing to the Lord with thanksgiving, sing praises to our God. Colossians 3.16. Listen, this is a New Testament verse that we've got to know, get familiar with, and walk in. No matter if you're a good singer or not. Here's the truth. You want me to be honest with you? I'm not a very good singer. I've been singing for the past 15 years, and I feel like I haven't gotten much better. I'm not very good. But all throughout the scriptures, I see these verses that command the people of God to sing. And so I look at that and I say, all right, the Bible says it. I'm gonna do it. The Bible really never says we have to be good. Now there's verses, I think of Psalm 33, like play skillfully with shouts of joy. And it's one thing to be the leader of a song and um you know be able to sing in a way where others can join you. So there's the practical things, um, but that's all beside the point. Here's the reality: we are called to sing. So here's the New Testament verse, Colossians 3:16. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Singing, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. So here's my challenge to you. I want you to sing. I want you to sing your prayers to the Lord. Even if it's for the sake of just being obedient to Colossians 3.16 and all of the other verses throughout the scriptures that tell us to sing. I want you to sing your prayers to God. When you get bored, when you're in the secret place and you're bored of praying, sing. When you're in the corporate setting, you're at a prayer meeting, sing, lift your voice and sing. Guys, it doesn't have to sound good. I'm around people frequently in prayer meetings all over the place. They don't sound good. I can hear them sing when we're in the room. They're not singers, they're not trained, they're not, you know, they don't have all the choir parts memorized, or but they sing their hearts to the Lord and it connects them to God, and he looks at it as a beautiful and joyful noise anyway. So I encourage you to sing. Another circumstance James brings up is sickness. Whenever we face sickness, James says, Let's pray. Let's get the elders of the church together so that they can pray for you. Now, this isn't because the elders have any sort of like special powers or they're they're the special privilege. You've got to get the pastor to pray for you and then you'll be healed. No, that's not the point. What James is saying is don't hide your sickness from those who are entrusted to shepherd you and guide you, from those who are invested in your life when you're struggling with sickness, don't hide it for them. Call them out so that they don't have to find out and then be like, oh, we could have came and prayed for you. What James is saying is call on them right away, get them to your house, and they'll come pray for you because it's their role in your life to shepherd you and care for you and love on you and pray with you. All right. We call them out. We don't wait for them to figure it out. We don't wait passively. We've got to be active. And when we do that, there's so many verses and things we've already been talking about. How when we gather believers together, God just does kingdom work. Instead of suffering in a sickness, which we all do, right? We all get the cold, we all get the headache, or we've got maybe even more serious issues going on, and we wait and we don't tell anybody. And James is like, grab the elders, grab people, have a prayer meeting, because when two or three are gathered together in his name, he shows up and he wants to do kingdom stuff. We talk about this verse all the time from Matthew 18. He says, Again, I say to you, if two or three of you agree on earth about anything they may ask, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst. So when we gather people together, it creates an opportunity for a unified expression and a unified reach for healing, which sometimes I need. I remember when my dad was struggling with cancer, there was really good days where I had a lot of faith and hunger for him to be healed. And there was also a lot of days where I felt desperate and at the end of myself and I didn't have a lot of faith or expectancy for healing. And I'm so grateful for friends and family members who were alongside of me, alongside of my dad in that season, because when I wasn't feeling the expectation or the faith for healing, they were, and they pulled me into that expectancy and that hunger for healing for my dad. And unfortunately, he wasn't healed, but I'll I'll never forget the day before he passed away. It was the evening. I was talking with him, and as we were talking, he just asked me, he said, son, just pray for me that I can get healed of this. I can't shake this. Uh, I don't know what it what it is, but uh pray for healing. And we prayed expectantly. The the night before he died, we prayed expectantly, fervently for healing, and we were feeding off one another's faith. It didn't look like he was gonna get healed in that moment, but I I think that final prayer I prayed for him was one of the most faith-filled prayers I've ever prayed in my life, expectant that in the morning God was gonna show up and do something awesome. And I believe that for some of you listening to this, that God can and will do that for you. And so pray, grab others, grab your pastor, grab your friends, and pray together when when you're sick and when you're facing these suffering moments. James, this is interesting. James, he instructs the elders to anoint the sick with oil. So we've seen anointing all throughout um scripture, and you know, I think of David being anointed king, and today we've got the little cute vials of of anointing oil. Well, back in in that time, they would just soak you in oil. They'd it would run all over your body, and it was like just a giant jar of oil that they would rush over them. And that would symbolize God's presence being with that person, the the anointing of the Holy Spirit being upon this person. They were consecrated, set aside, um, commissioned with the presence of God upon them. And interestingly, in the first century, oil was used as like a healing practice, like as medicine. They would use it for certain things that were going on. So I'd like to suggest the point that when James says, call the elders of the church, have them pray for you, and have them anoint you with oil, it was one saying, Let's invite the Holy Spirit and let's have the Holy Spirit heal you, and they're reaching and praying for supernatural healing. But also, I think James is saying, use the practical wisdom of the medicine of the day. Like if you're sick and the elders of the church have access to the oil, then ask them to come anoint you, and that might the practical wisdom of that type of medicine might heal you. And so often within the church, within the charismatic church, I almost feel that there's such a such a competition between contending for healing and practical medicine. And we demonize the practical medicine and we say, well, if you take medicine, then you don't have any faith and you don't believe God can heal. And we we put those things against each other, and I really think that God is just inviting us to say, hey, there's literally practical wisdom of taking vitamins and medicine and all of those things. We don't have to choose between one and the other. Now, of course, there's some medicines and prescriptions and those things that can be abused, and I'm not talking about that. I'm I'm talking about, you know, certain certain medicines that we can take and things we can take to help us um get over a sickness, get over a cold or whatever it is, but we shouldn't do one without the other. We shouldn't take the medicine without prayer, and we shouldn't just look at medicine and say that it's evil and demonic and we don't have faith if we take medicine. We can both honor God in reaching for supernatural power, but we can also honor the practical wisdom of taking medicine. I think that that's okay. Uh I I think what James is saying here is that it is possible for both faith and practical stuff to work hand in hand, and we don't have to choose one over the other. All right. Let's move on here. Second point here is that faith, confession, and the power to heal. We're gonna keep talking about healing. James 5, 15 through 16, first half of 16 says, and the prayer of faith will restore the one who's sick. So let's pause there. I know I just talked about medicine, but what James is saying is it really is the prayer of faith is what's gonna restore sick people. So though medicines can help us, and certainly they do, I believe that there's something to this prayer of faith that um restores those that are sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. So we're talking about the issue of faith here, praying in faith. Gather the elders, these are men who are mature in the Lord, men and women who are mature in the Lord, and have probably prayed for a lot of sick people, and you're asking them, come and pray in faith. Gather some people who are filled with faith when you're sick to have them pray for you. Here's the truth we live in a decaying age. This age will die and be done away with, and Jesus is coming back one day to make every wrong thing right, and that includes all sickness. And though not every single sickness will be healed in this age, it's not to say God can't do it or God won't do it. He's willing, he's able, he wants to do it, but here's the truth people die, people get sick. That will happen until he comes back. That's not gonna change. I I don't think that that means we we just sit idly by and sit in suffering and sit in sickness. I believe that as citizens of his kingdom, as those who are living according to his value system, those who are living according to the power and the authority of Jesus with resurrection in our DNA, we are called to contend for healing no matter what the circumstance looks like, and we're called to pray in an expectant and urgent way. That is faith. Think of what Hebrews 11 says about faith, how it defines faith. It says that faith is the certainty of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. So you're certain about the thing you're hoping for, and we've got evidence of things that we don't see. That's crazy that Hebrews 11 would say that. But that's how we're called to pray when we're sick, when we're praying for somebody who's sick. It means that we have this unshakable, unwavering confidence that God is who he says he is, and that he will do what he said he's gonna do. He'll fulfill his promise. To pray in faith is to approach God believing fully, believing fully, without doubt, that he is good, that he is powerful, and he is willing. I think of all of these verses. Uh, if you have the notes, I listed all of these verses throughout the Gospels, and one in Acts that talk about this divine connection between faith and healing. When Jesus would heal somebody, it was so often he would say, Your faith has made you well. There's the centurion's faith that led to healing. I I I won't list them all off. They're on the notes. There's a paralyzed man who's healed, a Canaanite woman's persistent faith. Uh Bartimaeus receives his sight because he believes Jesus can heal him. Woman healed from bleeding is told her faith has saved her. In in the book of Acts, a crippled man is healed through Paul, and the healing demonstrates the power that comes through faith in God. So there is this unique and dynamic connection between faith and healing. If we want to see healing, if we want to see restoration, if we want to see breakthrough, when we're praying for those that are sick, when we're praying for impossible scenarios, when we're praying for things that are feeling the effects of the limitations of this age, then we've got to pray with this type of faith. Now I listed Hebrews 11 here in a few different versions. The NASB, it's my favorite, says, now faith is the certainty. Think of these words here. The certainty of things hoped for, a proof of things not seen. In the um NIV, now faith is confidence in what we hope for, and assurance about what we do not see. And in the Amplified, now faith is the assurance or title deed, confirmation of things hoped for, divinely guaranteed, and the evidence of things not seen, or the conviction of their reality. Faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses. This is why so many people are caught up with the idea of healing and praying in faith. It's a huge debate within the body of Christ. There's some people who say healing's not for today, and um some people who are all about healing, and I want to be all about healing. But so many people get caught up in in this type of debate because we have to be certain, expectant, sure. We've got to have uh evidence of things that we don't see. So when we're sick and somebody has a mortal uh their their disease is gonna lead to them dying. And we've got a bunch of incredible, crazy people who say that might be true to some degree in the natural and according to the limitations of this age, but I'm believing in a king and a kingdom who does not operate according to those limitations. Jesus did when he came down to earth and took on our flesh and died. He limited him limited himself to those limitations of this age, but he has conquered the grave. He is ascended, and he's sitting right next to his father, and he's no longer limited to those limitations of our age. Jesus is able to heal today, and we need to have certainty of that type of reality and believe and pray for those who are sick and for impossible situations with that type of certainty and assurance of faith that he will do what he said that he's gonna do. If he can conquer the grave, can he not heal your headache? Come on, someone, come on, do you believe that? I believe that today. If he conquered the grave, can he not heal your head cold? Let's believe that this is who he is. Let's believe that this is what he's always wanted to do. Okay. I'm getting a little excited today. I hope that's all right. Um, moving on, James highlights the vital role of confession and community in partnership with prayer for healing. He says, um scrolling back up. I'm sorry, I lost my place in my own notes. James says, therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. This is the point we don't talk about enough. Unconfessed sin, it can actually weigh on your soul, and that weight can actually manifest in your physical frame. Did you know that? We are we are human and we are body, soul, and spirit. And they are not separate realities that are on their own trajectory, but they are we're an interconnected being of those three parts of who we are. They they work together. So when our soul is heavy and our spirit is decaying and we're neglecting God and we're living in unconfessed sin, that can have real effects on our physical body. Body. We don't talk about this enough. Look at Psalm 32. It says, When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. His body was wasting away for day and night. Your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality failed, as with the dry heat of summer. It's like we're withering away and getting dehydrated. That's what sin does to us. I acknowledge my sin to you and I did not hide my guilt. I said, I will confess my wrongdoings to the Lord, and you forgave all the guilt of my sin. There's so many times that I think when we're praying for healing and we hit walls and people aren't healed, it's because there is, they're living in either willful compromise and they're partnering with the curse of this age. When we live in sin and unrepentant, uh sinful patterns, we're actually living in partnership with those limitations we were just talking about earlier. We're living in agreement with the curse of mankind that happened during the fall. We're living in agreement with those realities. But when we come before God, when we come before our community and we confess in humility, I'm imperfect. I've been living in sin and I need help and I need, I need prayer, I need breakthrough. When we begin to live in that type of humility and confession, and we do it with a prayerful spirit, then I believe that some of those blockages in our prayer lives related to healing and related to breakthrough that will melt away. I wish I I could see and know and understand how many healings and breakthroughs are are just awaiting the confession of sin, just awaiting somebody to say, I am, I've been living in willful compromise. I don't want to partner with with that anymore. I want to I want to partner with the better way, with the resurrected Christ, with the resurrected Messiah. I want to I want to be washed in the blood of the Lamb. Like I I just believe that so much of our breakthrough is is is being hindered by our unconfessed sin and our our unwillingness to be repentant. When we confess in prayer to God in our community, we actually create atmospheres of healing. That might sound weird and new agey. I'm sorry if it does, but really when confession, like uh you study revival history and you look at moves of God where the presence of God was there and people were getting saved and signs and wonders were taking place, it almost always starts with people repenting and like wailing and groaning over their sin. When we have a community that is centered on confessing and repenting and and praying together, I believe that creates an atmosphere for healing. That creates an atmosphere for the kingdom to invade in supernatural ways. Confession humbles us, that praying together, it'll unite us, and those things open the door for both our physical healing but also our spiritual healing. They they they pave the way for people who are lost in sin to come in and to give their lives to Jesus and be spiritually renewed and be born again. So I really believe that praying communities, they can be environments where healing is the norm, where where restoration of our body, our soul, and our spirit is taking place on a regular basis. We should aim for that in this praying communities. I want that in our house of prayer. I want that at my local church. I never wanna I never want to have a a community that's afraid to confess our sin, a community that's more willing to live in darkness in partnership with the curse than living in freedom and abundance with uh under the blood. Finally, the effective prayer of the righteous. In the second half of verse 16 through verse 18, it says, A prayer of a righteous person when it's brought about can accomplish much. Come on. Gives an example. He says, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. And he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain, and the earth produced its fruit. So I really believe this that our prayers can be effective. Not because of the perfect words that we pray, not because we find the right Bible verse to pray, or not even because we knock on heaven's door all the time, which I believe in persistent prayer. I believe in knocking on God's door over and over and over again. I'm all for that. I've been leading a prayer room and praying similar prayers for 13 years now, and and I I I believe in persistence and consistency. But I think James is telling us something here that prayer can be effective when we live in alignment, when we when we're living righteous lifestyles, when we're doing the things that we ought to do in light of what he's done for us. We've been saved and delivered from the curse and the fall and the old man, yet so often we partner with the deeds of darkness and we live in agreement with those other things. I'm so grateful for the blood of Jesus because because of his blood and because of faith, we can be justified and we can live in right standing with him right here and right now. If you've res accepted Jesus into your heart, if he is your Lord and your Savior, right now you are in right standing with him, and there's nothing that will that can change that. There's no power, there's no force greater than the blood of the Lamb. Amen. But did you know that there's also a practical righteousness? First John 3 7 talks about righteousness being put into practice. Yes, we are in right standing, but we are called to grow and mature in the things that we ought to do as people covered in the blood of the Lamb. Those that are practicing out their righteousness, making real decisions, having real interactions with people around them that are in alignment with the truth and the fact that we are justified before God right here and right now. Bible says that God's ear is attentive to those who honor Him and to those who are set on His will. Psalm 34, 15. Says the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous. Do you want the eyes of God upon you? We ought to live righteous. We ought to always plead the blood. We ought to always, always cry out and remember and celebrate the blood and say, God, I want to live in light of what you've done. I want my lifestyle, my decisions, my interactions, my thoughts, the desires of my heart to reflect that I am living as one who's covered by the blood of the Lamb. Proverbs 15, 29 says, The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous. There's there's something knit to walking in righteousness, to walking in spiritual maturity that makes our prayers more effective. When we turn from sin, when we pursue biblical fruits, when we pursue integrity and we keep our hearts soft and humble before the Lord, I believe our prayers carry a different weight. God turns his head to the one who is righteous. God looks at the one who's living in agreement with him. God hears the prayers of those who love what he loves and hate what he hates. And not just in a cute way where we say the cool phrase like that, but in a way where it's lived out even down to our thought life. Oh, Lord, help us. Faith and righteousness work together, leading to a lifestyle of prayer that's effective in partnering with God. We're not trying to earn God's response here. It's not we do all of the right things so that God hears us. I believe that God can hear the prayer of a criminal on a cross who didn't do a thing in his life that was worthy of righteousness or whatever, and God and Jesus can look at him and say, Today you're with me in paradise. Like God can use the prayers of people who are even in sin, but I believe as people who are living according to who as a believer who's been saved most of his life, I should grow and mature in right living, in the practice of righteousness. I should grow and mature, and that should lead to effective prayer. That should lead to a greater alignment and a closer partnership with the desires that are in his heart. The righteousness is simply just loving what he loves and hating what he hates. And we can grow in that from our side. There's nothing we can do to make the blood more effective. The blood's effective. Amen. But we've got to grow in grasping that and living it out. It's practical. So we're not trying to earn God's response. We're just learning to live in submission. We're just learning to live surrendered to what he's already done and pray in agreement with his will, his desires, so that his purposes can be established. That's why I love John 15, verse 7. So grateful that this verse is in the Bible. It says, If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. So in the Bible, it actually says we can ask whatever we wish and it'll be done for us. But there's a sort of prerequisite here. If you remain in me, if we stay connected, the entire, you know, the context of the verses, us being branches, him being the vine, if we stay connected to him, not living distant, not living unfruitfully, if we stay connected to him and allow his word, his thoughts, his dreams, his desires, what he says to abide, to have its home inside of us, then we can ask whatever we wish and he'll do it. It's just a reminder that this is all about connectedness to Jesus. Finally, James points to an example. Talks about Elijah. He says, A normal dude, Elijah, is a man just like us, yet he told the heavens not to rain, and it didn't. Then he told them to rain, and then it did. Elijah had the same nature, same emotions, same weaknesses that we all have, yet he prayed with sincerity and perseverance. He listened to God, did what God said, and his prayers carried weight. It wasn't because he was a special person, this is what James is saying. It wasn't because he was uh selected just for this, but because of the one that he trusted. He just loved, loved God and trusted God and did what he said. When he asked for the rain to stop, heaven responded. When he prayed again, the skies opened and the earth bore fruit. I think that effectiveness and prayer, it's not about our status. It's not about spiritual status. Oh, are you a prophet? Are you an apostle? Are you a pastor? Did you go to Bible school? Did you go to this training, that internship, this thing, and now you've got this status? It's not what it's about. It's not about our elegance, it's not about praying the right words or or saying the right things. It's not about praying these long-winded prayers that, okay, if I forget this thing, God's not going to hear that and he won't answer. I think that there's a simplicity to just trusting God, staying connected to him, believing in him. It's it's about having earnest faith, believing he is who he says that he is. It's about living in righteousness, it's about uh doing the things we ought to do in light of what he's done, and living in partnership with his heart. The journey of prayer is the journey of discovering the heart of God. It's possible for ordinary people like you and I to pray prayers of alignment with his will and have God actually respond. Can shift. God can shift things in culture, God can shift things in your city, in your region, in the nation because of your simple prayers. So I encourage you today, be a person of prayer, be a person who longs for effective prayer. First John 5, 14 through 15. We'll close with this. Says, this is the confidence we have in approaching God. We've got confidence to approach God today. It says that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him. I believe, guys, that our prayers can be effective. And I want to call us to be a people who would pray effective prayers.