The Prayer That Avails Much

“The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” James 5:16b (NKJV)

James tells us that there is such a thing as effective prayer. If there is an effective way to pray, then we must also recognize that there are ways of praying that are ineffective. We love to quote the promise that prayer “avails much,” but we cannot overlook the words James places before it: “the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man.” James connects the effectiveness of prayer not only to the prayer being offered, but also to the life of the person offering it.

Our private lives and our prayer lives must be in alignment. The life we live before God cannot contradict the prayers we bring before Him, as though God is concerned with what happens in the prayer closet but indifferent to what happens when we leave it. Scripture repeatedly connects our relationship with God, our obedience to Him, and our prayers, which means that what we tolerate in private matters when we pray.

The psalmist understood this when he wrote, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear” (Psalm 66:18 NKJV). This does not mean that God only hears the prayers of people who have reached sinless perfection, because Scripture gives us no such category of believer. Rather, the warning concerns our posture toward sin, particularly when we recognize what God has identified as sin and yet choose to allow it to remain.

Sometimes we justify sin because we have decided that it is not really that serious, or we rationalize it because it does not appear to bring immediate consequences. We may compare ourselves with others, rename what Scripture clearly identifies, or convince ourselves that God will simply overlook what we have become unwilling to confront. Over time, this produces complacency with sin, and what once troubled our conscience can gradually become something we have learned to tolerate.

That is the danger of complacency. We can become comfortable with what God has called us to confront. Something the Holy Spirit once convicted us about can become so familiar that instead of responding with repentance, we begin defending, excusing, or accommodating it.

There is, however, an important difference between struggling against sin and becoming complacent with sin. The person struggling against sin recognizes it as an enemy, continues bringing it before God, repents when they fall, and desires freedom from it. Complacency begins when we stop resisting, begin rationalizing, and make room for something God has called us to put away.

A righteous person is not a perfect person, and James himself makes that clear when he points to Elijah immediately afterward and tells us that “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours” (James 5:17 NKJV). Our access to God is not something we earn through flawless behavior, nor does our obedience purchase answers to prayer. Yet the grace that gives us access to God should never be used to suggest that obedience does not matter, because a life surrendered to Christ should be a life that is quick to repent, responsive to conviction, willing to obey, and unwilling to knowingly protect what God has called us to surrender.

This is why our private lives matter so much in the prayer closet. We cannot continually resist God’s authority in one area of our lives while expecting to exercise spiritual authority in another. We cannot knowingly make room for what is contrary to His will while asking Him to accomplish His will through our prayers.

David’s prayer gives us the posture of someone who genuinely desires to walk rightly before God: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23 to 24 NKJV). This should be part of the posture of every intercessor, because before asking God to expose what needs to change in everyone around us, we must remain willing for Him to search and change us.

The prayer that avails much comes from a heart that is not only asking God to move, but is also willing to be moved by God. If we are going to enter the prayer closet asking for His will to be accomplished in our families, our churches, our communities, and our nation, then we must first be willing for His will to have its way in us. We cannot sincerely pray “Your will be done” over everything around us while resisting that same will when God brings it to our own hearts.

The prayer that says, “Your will be done,” must come from a life that is willing to say, “Your will be done in me.”