Mutual Prayer for Victory

“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (Jas 5:16 AV)

The second half of the verse gets quoted often.  I quote it often.  However, we forget the immediate context of this absolute statement of fact.  The context is overcoming faults.  What follows this verse is a reference to the old testament Prophet who prayed to withhold rain for three years and prayed again for it to rain.  God heard and answered.  This request has nothing to do with overcoming the fault of another, but it does show the effectual and fervent prayer of someone who walks with God.  Even if the prayer is not regarding overcoming of a fault, the prayer of someone who walks with God is still effectual.  What we want to consider this morning is the immediate context preceding this fact of effectual prayer from someone who walks with God.

 We live very private lives.  There is the life we want others to see.  Then there the life that is hard to hide from those closest to us.  Then there is the private life that only God sees.  We are reluctant to share the faults we have lest we receive a judgmental spirit from the self-righteous.  What happens is we fight a battle against self that we really do not have to fight alone.  Not that we need to stand in the middle of a crowd and spill our deepest darkest secrets for the sake of honest transparency.  This would not be advisable.  In the short term, it may make us feel better.  In the long term, it could be the impetus for others to fail in the same area.  Not a good idea.  However, that doesn’t mean we should face the battle alone.  James is not sharing a complicated idea here.  The world knows this principle.  Whether in a AA meeting or group sessions at a Psychiatrist’s office, sharing our faults is therapeutic and makes one accountable.  James is pointing out another reason for sharing.  So that we might have a partner in prayer who will encourage us to overcome in the faults which we so desperately want to overcome.

This prayer partner should be someone who has gained more victory in the same area as we have.  Someone who can pray from the strength of faith and not simply empathy.  Someone who has been there and has either overcome, or is on the way of overcoming.  That is why James qualifies the prayer as one that must come from righteousness.  At least righteousness is the area of the faults confessed.  This prayer partner must be someone who can be trusted and has the struggling saint’s best interest at heart.  He must be faithful.  And, he must be willing to follow up that ground is not lost.  What a difference our churches would experience if they strove in prayer over the sins of one another.  One wonders how differently to couple of First Corinthians chapter five might have been had they confessed their sin and asked for prayer partners to partner with them in prayer for victory over their sin.  We are like an army that watches our own get shot up in battle and continue on without a care for the fallen.  We criticize a foolish decision rather than take pity and pray for them.  We forget from whence we are fallen.  The prayer of a righteous man does avail much.  Including victory over faults of another.