James 5:16

• (NIV) The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

• (NKJV) The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

• (NASB95) The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

• (MSG) The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.

• (ESV) The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

• (NLT) The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

Effective Prayer: Begins With The Spoken Word

• God speaks

• Man speaks

• Unlimited audiences:

• God

• Man

• Spiritual/natural realm

• First Words - Genesis 1:3 (ESV) And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

• Key Words - Genesis 1:26 (ESV) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. 

• God didn’t just speak, he fashioned with His hands.

• Genesis 2:18 (ESV) Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

• Genesis 2:21–23 (ESV) So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.  And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.  Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

• Normative Words - Genesis 3:8 (ESV) And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…

• Heaven and earth is connected, aligned

• Contested Words - Genesis 3:23–24 (ESV) therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.  He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

From that moment on, prayer was no longer easy communication. It became lost, difficult, skewed, perverted, unsuccessful, questionable, illegal, contested, punished, ineffective

Combat Ineffective Prayer: PRAY/READ OUT LOUD!

• Personal prayer time

• Praying for others

• Talking to circumstances

Effective Prayer Reconnects Heaven And Earth

The Reality Of Disconnection: a byproduct of sin, a strategy of the enemy, a condition you will experience your entire life, regardless of your spiritual condition.

• Daniel 10:12–13 (ESV) “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.  The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days…

• Matthew 4:1–3 (ESV) Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness....  And after fasting forty days and forty nights… the tempter came and said to him, “If..”

• Deuteronomy 28:23 (ESV) And the heavens over your head shall be bronze…

• Psalm 22:1–2 (ESV) My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?  O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

• Isaiah 59:1–2 (ESV) Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

Prayer Reconnects

• Genesis 4:26 (ESV) To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD.

• Genesis 28:16–17 (ESV) Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.”  And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

• Jeremiah 29:12–14 (ESV) Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.  You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, declares the LORD, 

• Acts 4:31 (ESV) And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

Combat Ineffective Prayer: PRAY INTO PRESENCE

Effective Prayer Realigns Heaven And Earth

This step is contingent upon the last step.

God’s Presence Catalyzes Alignment.

Stop Praying For Alignment Without Presence!

• Matthew 6:9–10 (ESV) Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

• 1 John 5:14–15 (ESV) And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

• Mark 9:28–29 (KJV) And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out?  And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.

Bringing Alignment In More Than Just The Area Prayer For

• Personal alignment

• Internal kingdom alignment

• External kingdom alignment

Combat Ineffective Prayer:  Fast For Power

• (NIV) ...prayer... is powerful 

• (MSG) ...prayer... is something powerful to be reckoned with.

• (ESV) ...prayer... has great power as it is working.

• (NLT) ...prayer... has great power and produces wonderful results