Day 12

 

His Righteousness Not Our Own




James 5:16: “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

All she could remember were the failures that were cast over her path like breadcrumbs. Now she’s in a place with no other recourse. She tries to pray, but she cannot find the words. All she feels are remorse and shame. She now knows that God was the answer all along, but she doesn’t know how to pray without feeling bad. She tried for years to fix her problems. She fought, she struggled, she manipulated people and situations. But all to complete failure. She never turned to God, really. “O, sure, I prayed. But they were not really prayers. They were feeble attempts to make myself feel better about myself; better about the cyclical cycle of strongholds that chained me like a hopeless prisoner for years.”

Maybe, you’ve been there. Have you ever felt like your prayers were just hitting a wall? A long time ago I read “the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” I read that verse with a condition attached to it. I thought that if I live right before God, I’ll pray powerful and effective prayers. It seemed to make sense. When I prayed, my thoughts wandered to past mistakes, sins I had committed, and habits that seemed to define how I felt. Surely God would not hear or honor the prayers of such a person.

But then I realized something. Paul said, "there is no one righteous, not even one" (Romans 3:10). The apostle goes on to say that there is nothing in us that will cause us to seek God. In fact, we find somewhere else that our righteousness is not achieved by doing the right things, but through the work of Christ on the cross. He became sin so that we might become in Him the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). We are righteous, not because of our goodness, but because of His goodness; not from our effort, but because of His grace.

This idea transforms how to read the promise from James. If we pray from grace, our prayers can be powerful and effective. From dependence upon God's goodness; from trust in His work; from knowing the God who made us to become something that we are not (i.e. righteous). When we pray from His loving heart for us, we will find our prayers powerful and effective.

When this quiet prayer warrior discovered this powerful truth about grace and prayer, it transformed how and why she prayed. She now petitioned God free to approach Him confident in His goodness. She prays now not just to receive answers to prayer but to know the One who answered a lingering question that plagued her thoughts: “What gives me the right to ask God for anything?” She now knows that her right to pray comes from His righteousness and not her own.

Declaration of Grace:

I receive Your righteousness. I come to You based on Your goodness and not my own. I pray in this moment not to receive something, but because I want more than anything to know You. I express my thanks and praise to You for making me right and giving me the right to approach You for mercy and grace.



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