City Life Starter

I. THE WORD: Mark 11:24-25 | James 5:16

Mark 11:24-25 
24 Listen to me! You can pray for anything, and if you believe, you have it; it’s yours! 25 But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive you your sins too.”

James 5:16
16 Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and wonderful results.

II. REFLECTION QUESTIONS
1. When and where do you most often find yourself praying? 

2. Is the act of praying enough to guarantee a response from God? If not, what else do Mark and James highlight as vital to healthy communication with God? 

3. What does a ‘righteous man’ know and do differently that makes his prayers so powerful and effective?      

Think about this: today in Houston you can order anything you want, good or bad, with the click of a few buttons on your smartphone. There’s usually only one condition, only one requirement. If you have the money, it’s yours!

But living in the 21st century in one of the largest cities on Earth can scatter and blur and mask the eternal nature and order of things. With all our modern day technological advances we can gain a false sense of control and security, and even entitlement, when whatever we want appears overnight in a brown box at our doorstep.
  
While money doesn’t move God to action, there’s more to praying than ‘ask and you shall receive.’ If Amazon wants your credit card number to ship the goods, what conditions does God put on us in our prayer life – if we are to expect to receive what we’ve asked for?

It’s been my experience that truth and wisdom are most easily grasped in the middle of nowhere – in the middle of the night. To know that is precisely the hour Jesus set aside to spend time praying to God makes perfect sense to me.   

When I’m out in the pitch dark, bombarded by the light from a trillion stars, the truth about my place and significance in the universe is undeniable. I know where I stand, physically and metaphysically. I am utterly humbled.  

I should just stand there speechless in awe and wonder…but do I dare believe the Word, and open my mouth and make requests to the God who created the Milky Way Galaxy floating over my head? 

Jesus says emphatically YES! Pray for anything! It’s yours. On one condition: FIRST, humble yourself. Physically, or metaphysically. Whatever it takes. 

In a similar way, James ties powerful prayer that yields results to ‘righteous’ people, also described at the beginning of 5:16 as those who are willing to humble themselves and admit their faults and brokenness to one another. 

In summary, we are all sinners, faulty, broken, and in need of healing. But when we admit this truth to ourselves and others, we can be righteous in God’s eyes, and when that happens… pray hard and get ready for some ‘wonderful results!’

III. PRAYER

Most holy God. I stand in awe of you. I humble myself before you right now. I understand it is only through Jesus that my prayer is offered and accepted by You.  

Today I pray for everyone reading this devotion. I pray that when we open our mouths to pray, we FIRST do what’s necessary to humble ourselves, and then ask boldly knowing we have nothing to give, and that we owe everything we do have to You. May our prayers be powerful and yield wonderful results from this day forward. Amen!