The Christian Prayer Life

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man (person) availeth much. James 5:6

This verse in the Book of James held so much challenge for me when I first chanced upon it as a young man many years ago. Sometimes the very choice of words used to couch some of these scriptures in themselves, appear to hinder our fuller appreciation of them. In this verse, we have words such as ‘effectual’, ‘fervent’, ‘righteous’ and ‘availeth’. What do they mean?

As I understand it, these are multi-adjectives used to describe a certain way or manner of prayer, the manner of which we are not told. I will try my own interpretation.

Effectual comes from the word ‘effect’ which also gives us ‘effective’, which also means capable of producing an intended result. To wit, a prayer that is capable of intended result?

Furthermore, the word fervent denotes passionate intensity and in archaic form meaning hot, burning or glowing. So by this interpretation, I can substitute it with passionate prayer , a hot, burning or glowing prayer, which makes it even more interesting. Why and how to have that kind of prayer: either said, muttered or meditated? And again, for what purpose? Does God, our father need us to demonstrate passion, intensity before he hears us? What is James on about?

As if the above is not enough, James add another adjectival twist to the spiritual equation, a Righteous (and wait for it) man. So, I got even more confused in that not only I am not able to exhibit the first two adjectives, I am now expected to be righteous. Indeed, this was very heavy for me right from the start, to say the least. 

But as I walked in my faith and grow in the Lord, I have come to grasp these in the most welcoming manner than before.  James is a man of faith as we all know, and wants us to exercise our faith through prayer. I remember it is James that said faith without works is dead and also know that without faith it is impossible to please God.

The way we exercise our faith in Christ is through prayer, meaningful prayer that is, which I think captures all the first two adjective effectual, fervent. Looking at it carefully, we see that it is not effectual and fervent, but effectual fervent, meaning the two words must combine to have a strong effect as prayer ought to have in our lives.

But who is righteous anyway? This is a big question which I grapple with daily as a christian. But St Paul answered it nicely for me when he describes it as an imputation rather than works. In Romans 3:22 Paul speaks of righteousness as from God through faith and in Philippians 3:9 as being found in Him and not having righteousness of his own.  

Having understood the concept of holiness from St Pauls own words, now I have a better picture of what the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man (person) mean to me. I have learnt to explore the scripture well through reading, prayer, and meditation. Every Christian, I believe is a righteous person, because as we have accepted Christ as our Lord and personal saviour, God sees us through Christ and since Christ is Holy, we in turn enjoy that state of holiness in the eyes of God.

We are all capable of effectual fervent prayer, in as much as we mean what we say in our prayer, they will ‘avail’ much. God will hear us. Let us walk in our faith.

Rev. Joshua Obeng-Nyarko