Prevaliling Prayer Sermon Part 1-Intro

I preached on Sunday about prayer. The next few days will include exerpts from that sermon. Hope you enjoy.
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“Are you hurting? Pray. Do you feel great? Sing. Are you sick? Call the church leaders together to pray and anoint you with oil in the name of the Master. Believing-prayer will heal you, and Jesus will put you on your feet. And if you’ve sinned, you’ll be forgiven—healed inside and out.
Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
James 5:13-16 (MSG)

What kind of prayer is being talked about? I think most of us would look at the prayer offered by Frank in the movie and think, that wasn’t effective. That wasn’t even a prayer. So what is an effective, powerful prayer? Is it any old prayer spoken by someone who goes to church? Is it a special memorized prayer? Do certain words have to be used? From what we read in the Bible, there are no secret words or tricks that should be used. In fact, using formulaic prayer is often looked down upon rather than celebrated. And as we think about this passage in James, he doesn’t tell us what to say. He just tells us to do it, in whatever form we feel led to use.

I believe that prayer is the link between the spiritual and the physical. It unites the heavenly with the earthly. And when we think about building a spiritual temple, it cannot be done without prayer. It is through prayer that we grow in faith, in trust, and in our relationship with God. When we consider prayer, I think it is important to distinguish the occasion and reasoning for different types of prayer. Though there may be more, but I want to really hone in on 3 types of prayers today—prayers of honor, healing, and help. We will be hearing examples of each type of prayer taken right from the Psalms. May our faiths and prayer lives be bolstered as we encounter the God that hears our prayers and acts.