Does God Hear My Prayers? Discover Keys to Power-Filled Prayer

Many have undertaken the charge of writing about prayer with the goal of inspiring our brothers and sisters in Christ to effectual prayer. Prayer should move and shift. Otherwise, what’s the point? I add my voice as a harmony to those who have taught on this subject and endeavored to answer the question: Does God Hear my Prayers? Each of us brings a distinct part, and they all flow together in one glorious masterpiece. With the Holy Spirit as the great maestro, each of us endeavor to play our part exceedingly well as we trust Him to put it all together.

With James 5:13-16 as our text, I want to dive into Power-Filled Prayer.

13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 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. 16 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.

(James 5:13-16, NIV)

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This passage begins with the same topic as the letter begins with. The second verse of James commands us to consider it joy when we endure trials of various kinds. Consider it joy, my brothers and sisters, when you go through the hard things in life. I don’t know about you, but joy is the last thing on my mind when I’m going through the trials and hard things. I’m not talking about someone got your order wrong in the drive thru - I’m talking about the things in life that we are worried are going to take us out: temptations that feel impossible to overcome, adversities in our lives that we aren’t sure we will survive, or the troubles that seem to come from nowhere. Some of them are products of our own decisions, but some are altogether out of our control.

Consider it joy when you right addiction to something that you have tried to quit a million times, but you can’t. Rejoice when you lose your job and you don’t know how you’re going to take care of your family. Decide to tap into joy when your spouse files for divorce, your adult child is homeless, and your car breaks down all in the same week. Joy is not tied to circumstances. Joy is a major part of the Kingdom of God.

The Prayer of Faith (Does God hear my prayers?)

James is writing to a faith community when he asks if anyone among you are in trouble. This letter is to the person who has placed their faith in Jesus, the risen Messiah. This is terrible advice to someone who has no grid for who Jesus is. However, it’s stellar advice to the child of God. This encouragement should ring true in the heart of a disciple of Jesus Christ, and it should resonate louder than the circumstance. When someone who has committed their heart to Jesus has gotten their focus on the trial and the problem, and another from their faith community calls them to joy, it should shift their focus back to the Risen King. This is the context of the passage. If anyone in your community of faith is going through something that feels too big to bear, encourage them to pray! If anyone among you is sick, have them call the elders of the church, others with faith in the same Risen King, and have them pray as they anoint the sick person with oil in the name of the Lord.

The word pray in verse 13, 14, and 15 means to offer prayers, to ask or beg for something earnestly or humbly. The Kingdom of God is voice-activated. Of course, God already knows every single thing that is going on inside of each one of us. He knows what’s going on inside and He knows what’s going on around us. And yet, Jesus still teaches us to pray with our voices. In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches the disciples to pray. He teaches them how to offer prayers to God; He teaches them how to ask or beg for something earnestly or humbly. When Jesus teaches, He tells them to pray like this:

9 Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name.

10 Your kingdom come,your will be done,    

on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us this day our daily bread,

12 and forgive us our debts,    

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And lead us not into temptation,    

but deliver us from evil (Matthew 6:9-13, ESV).

Teach Us To Pray

Jesus teaches His disciples to go to God, acknowledge Him as Holy, and ask for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Isn’t that the heart of prayer? Not that we would get what we want, but that we would experience what He wants. How can we know what God’s will is? How can we know what His Kingdom looks like? We have to be close to Him and ask Him. If He is our Father, then we are His children. I don’t know about you, but when I raised my daughter, we talked every single day. We talked about everything. From our conversations, I learned she doesn’t like ham and prefers pie to cake, and how she loves horses and riding quads. I found out she loved pink and green when she was 10, but by the time she was 17, she like aqua and grey. As we spent time together, she found out why I don’t like oatmeal and how hard it is for me to deal with people when they lie. We discovered things we enjoyed doing together, like baking, decorating cookies and cupcakes, painting birdhouses, doing crafts, cooking, hiking on trails, making up songs, and playing pranks on her dad. There were also things that we had to do together that neither of us enjoyed, like homework and cleaning her room.

God invites you into a close relationship with Him. Imagine if your child, because they love you and want to be with you, climbed into bed with you in the morning when they woke up, snuggled in, and started asking you questions. Mommy, what is your favorite food? Lasagna is my favorite, baby. Ok. Later, as you plan what you should make for dinner that night, your child says, let’s have lasagna. How sweet. They remembered that’s what your favorite is, so they ask for it. That’s the relationship we should have with God in prayer. Get close to Him. Ask Him what He likes, what He thinks, what He desires. Then, pray for that which you heard. Ask Him, what is Your Kingdom like, God? What would it look like for Your Kingdom to be here on this earth in this situation? Listen to what He shares with you. Ok, now pray that. Jesus taught we are His sheep, and His sheep hear His voice. You can hear God. If you want help being discipled in hearing God, I wrote a book about that. Belief Rehab: You Are Enough.

The End of Whiny Prayers Does God hear my prayers?

Our faith communities have trained us to pray, so we think we know what it looks like. I’d like to challenge you to break up with your current habits of prayer and really lean into God’s heart before you pray a single thing. James refers in verse 15 to the “prayer of faith.” Prayer is so much more than mere words spoken. Prayer is really about the faith that backs the words. Do you serve a God who knows the end from the beginning? Is God amazingly good and faithful? Is His Word true to you? Do you really believe the God who created the heavens, the earth, light, water, land, and every plant, animal, & mineral that fills it is the same God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead? Do you really have faith that He hears you, loves you, and wants to respond to your petitions? The way we see God affects the way we pray! The way we see ourselves in relation to God affects it almost as much!

I have been guilty of praying “whiny prayers” over the years. I call them whiny prayers, because they are not backed by faith in the One I am praying to. They have little substance. They sound like this: Lord, I don’t know if You’re too busy up there, or if You can even hear me. I know there’s a bunch of other people who are way more important than me with much bigger problems that You’re probably dealing with. But if, by some miracle, You can hear me, can you grant me this one thing? If you grant me this one thing, I won’t ask You for anything else.

Those prayers are terrible, and I’m embarrassed to say I’ve prayed that way many times! They show the littleness of our faith in God. We see Him as busy, with limited power, absent, and disconnected from what is going on in our lives. If we think we have to get His attention, that means we don’t think His attention is on us. The truth is, you have God’s full attention every moment of every day. I have His full attention, as well. He is that massively powerful, that He can have His full attention on all 8 billion of us at once. Sometimes we think we have a limited number of prayers to be answered because we don’t understand the heart of our Father, Who loves us! We have a Father who will do everything to see us walk in the life He created us for. In fact, He has already done everything.

When we exchange the whiny prayer mindset for the mindset of faith, the prayer offered in faith will heal the sick. The prayer of faith will save the one who is lost. The Greek word for “save” is sōzō. It means to save, make well, make whole, heal the sick, and preserve the one who is in danger of destruction. Our prayers have to become more than just empty words thrown up to a distant God. We have to understand the power of our words offered in faith to a God who is ABLE!

The Energy of Prayer! Power-Filled Prayer!

The icing on the cake of this passage is in verse 16: “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” (James 5:16, ESV). The prayer of the righteous person is a force to be reckoned with. In this verse, the word for prayer is different. It’s described as a prayer within a prayer. A prayer offered in faith by a person whose heart is persuaded they are righteous in Him does damage to the kingdom of darkness.

The Apostle Paul describes how a human obtains this righteousness: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV). Take some time to think about the righteousness piece, because it’s a major key to this teaching on effective prayer. We all want to be a part of prayer that goes to work. I want to pray prayers which go to work on my behalf and on behalf of others, and I also want to be the recipient of prayer that works. Many of us are going through trials that threaten to take us out. I need effectual prayer to be made on my behalf by saints whose hearts are persuaded they are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. It’s the prayer of the righteous that’s a force to be reckoned with. The prayers of the whiny effect nothing.

The person whose heart is persuaded they are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus believes they are justified, sanctified, holy, and blameless. They believe the word of God, which says Christ presents us as holy and blameless in His sight (Ephesians 1:4, Colossians 1:22). Each of us needs to have our heart persuaded that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6), co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), and in fact we are hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). God chooses to see you through the lens of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. He, in His great mercy and only by His grace, chooses to see you as holy, blameless, sanctified, and justified.

The Prayer of the Righteous Damages the Kingdom of Darkness

When we truly believe we are righteous in God, we abide in a close relationship with Him. The word prayer in verse 16 differs from the word prayer in the previous 3 verses. It means a prayer wrapped in a prayer. When we believe we are righteous in Him, we inject an intimate, heart-to-heart, child-like confidence prayer inside the prayer, which causes a powerful energy to be released. Peter echoes the same principle: “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, His ear is open to their prayer” (1 Peter 3:12 ESV). There is something about the heart of the one who believes he is righteous in God that adds energy to the fervent, heart-felt prayer.

The word for powerful in Greek is energeō. You may recognize it as the word we get our English word energy. This isn’t some ethereal theoretical concept. Energy is real, measurable, and tangible. Energy puts forth power to go to work. Energy is displayed by the work that’s done. The toaster toasted because of the power that supplied the heat. The man ran the marathon by the power of energy that was spent. The prayer of the righteous gets answered by a God who exerts POWER in a situation and changes are affected, because the righteous one is close to His heart and prays what He desires. The child is set free from addiction because of the prayers of a mother whose heart is persuaded she is righteous in Him. A man gets a better job than the one he was fired from because of the fervent prayer offered in faith. Marriages get restored because of prayer. Hearts get healed because of prayer. Sons and daughters come to faith because of prayer.

I’ve seen 90-year-olds give their heart to Jesus because of prayer. One time, I saw someone healed of a disease they had for over 70 years because of prayer. I’ve seen sons who carried intense anger because of wounds from their father release the pain and anger in a moment, and be instantly healed. I’ve seen purity restored to women who thought they were damaged beyond redemption. I saw a baby healed of brain cancer because of the prayer of the righteous. In the most difficult seasons of my life, I’ve found joy. The joy of being His Beloved Daughter was released in my heart as I battled anxiety and fear in trials. I believe God’s eyes are on the righteous, and I believe His ear is open to their prayer. Scripture says it, and I work to believe.

I believe God wants to increase and expand the prayer life of His Sons and Daughters. The earth belongs to God (Psalm 24:1), and God has given authority to rule this earth to His children (Genesis 1:28-30, 2:15, Matthew 28:18-20, Luke 10:19, Psalm 115:16), and He desires for us to invite Him in to break into our circumstances. He wants to answer our prayers, not because we have earned anything, but because He is merciful and full of grace. It’s all His power. I want to see your prayers being answered by the One who is the object of your faith. Together, I believe we can see His Kingdom come and His Will be done. We want to see heaven manifest on this earth in our day.

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