Prayer Is The Heartbeat Of Faith
Check your prayer life. Have you neglected it or does it need improvement? James 5:13-18 teaches us that we can tell our heart of faith is beating by our prayer life because Prayer Is The Heartbeat Of Faith. October 28, 2007.
Sirens are wailing. The ambulance screeches to a halt. Out jumps a paramedic team. They dash over to the accident victim. One of paramedics leans closer to the other and whispers, “Is he alive?” Medical technology has developed a number of highly sensitive tests to determine whether a person is still living. But out on that highway, a paramedic might use a very simple test, checking for a heartbeat.
In his letter the apostle James outlines a number of tests that Christians can run to make sure their spiritual life is OK. He says we can tell when our heart of faith is beating by checking what comes out of our mouth, by the way we handle money, and by the way we treat other people. Near the end of his letter, James adds another test. We can tell our heart of faith is beating by our prayer life because Prayer Is The Heartbeat Of Faith.
Resting on Christ
A pulse can only come from a real, living heart. Prayer can only come from a real, living faith. What is real faith? James points to the definition when he mentions the prayer of a righteous person. Our first thought might be that a righteous person is a person who reads the Bible, goes to church, and stays out of trouble. But a definition like that ignores what the Bible says. A righteous person is one who is right with God. No one gets right with God by who he or she is, what he or she does, or how he or she lives. We get right with God only by what Jesus did.
And what did Jesus do? He stretched his perfect life over the chasm that our sins created in our relationship with God, and he bridged that gap. Of course, we’re on our side of that chasm wondering, “If I try to walk across the bridge, the holy God is on the other side, and he’s going to push me off the bridge because I’ve been so arrogant and insensitive toward others and done and thought all kinds of other bad things.” But Jesus spreads the blanket of his righteousness over us to cover our sins so that God does not see them and then takes us by the hand and walks us right into God’s loving arms.
But some people don’t believe what Jesus did is important or don’t want it or don’t care about it and either knowingly or unknowingly push that blanket aside. By doing so, they expose themselves to God’s anger and demonstrate that they do not have real faith. People like that can scream and shout, bow and beg, but their so-called prayers are not heard. The prophets of Baal stood on Mt. Carmel opposite Elijah and shouted for Baal to burn up their sacrifices. Nothing happened. No faith – no real prayer. Only a person with real faith can pray in a God-pleasing way. Real faith rests on Jesus Christ alone, and that kind of faith produces prayer as naturally as a healthy heart produces a steady pulse. A famous theologian once wrote: Praying is the work of faith alone and something no one but a Christian can do … Without faith no real prayer can be offered and apart from Christ no one is able to pray a single letter that is worth anything before God and acceptable to him … God will neither hear nor heed the prayer of anybody unless he comes relying on God’s pure grace and mercy in Christ and says, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Confident
Do you recall Jesus’ words, “Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you”(Matthew 7:7)? That’s an open invitation. So, go ahead and pray, “Lord, take away this arthritic pain.” “Lord, provide me with financial stability.” “Lord, keep my children away from peers who push drugs and alcohol.”
But sometimes we don’t get what we want. What then? That’s when faith takes over. Faith knows that God answers every prayer. Faith trusts that God’s answers are always best. Faith clings to the fact that God does not always give us what we want but what we need, many times answering, “Yes! Here you go!” but at other times answering, “I’ve got something much better in mind for you. Just wait and see.”
The problem we have when considering how God answers our prayers is that we still have that little devil sitting on our shoulder, whispering in our ear, “Forget about God. Do your own thing because he has forgotten about you.” Push that little devil off your shoulder, and listen to your God invite you to pray. Then pray with confidence that he hears and answers every single prayer according to his will and in a way that is always best for us. That theologian I mentioned earlier wrote: We enjoy the benefit that our prayer is always heard; for it is not heard according to our will, yet it is heard according to the will of God, which is better than ours … We often ask for what seems to be good for us. But God grants not what seems good to us but what [actually] is good.”
Constant
Did you ever notice that when you’re scared, your heart starts beating faster? The same is true with the heartbeat of faith. Sometimes we find that prayer for help comes to the lips more quickly and more easily than other prayers. There is a danger in that. We may find ourselves praying only in times of trouble and our prayers then become only a fire extinguisher.
God does not want us to pray only in emergencies. The Bible says, “Pray continually”(1 Thessalonians 5:17). James agreed, “Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? Let him call the elders of the church and let them pray over him”. The apostle encourages us to pray in bad times and in good. In bad times, God will help. God will heal. Then, after the help, after the healing, don’t let your heart of faith stop beating. Continue with prayers of praise and thanks. Even if God does not heal your body right away, even if he does not give you a solution to your problems according to your timetable, sing praises anyway. He has healed your soul with forgiveness through Jesus. James has good news for worried souls – The Lord will raise you up. If you have sinned, you will be forgiven.
Trust in the Lord’s promises, like this one – “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will hear”(Isaiah 65:24) – and your heart of faith will be steadily pulsing out prayers, prayers that may be formal or informal, long or short, memorized or homemade, loud or silent. God speaks to us through his Word, and he gives us the privilege of speaking to him in prayer – any time, any where, any way – constant communication with God. That’s what we mean by the heartbeat of faith. That same theologian wrote: A Christian is always praying, whether he is sleeping or waking; for his heart is always praying … Oh, that we were as diligent in praying as God is in inviting, promising, and urging us to pray.
Powerful
The comparison of prayer with a heartbeat is not perfect. A pulse only indicates that a heart is beating. The heartbeat of faith actually has power. The apostle wrote, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective”. Prayer is so simple and yet so mighty. It is based on the mighty miracle of God’s saving love. And look who is inviting us to pray. It is the almighty Creator of heaven and earth.
Jacob prayed for protection from his brother Esau when going home. God made their reunion possible and pleasant. Moses prayed for water for the Israelites in the desert. God directed him to throw a log into a pool of bitter water, and the water became sweet. Hannah prayed for a son. Samuel prayed for victory. Solomon prayed for wisdom. Those prayers touched the heart of God. James cited the example of Elijah who had confronted wicked King Ahab with God’s judgment on a perverse kind of idolatry that encouraged people to participate in immoral behavior which would please the god of thunder, who would then make it rain so crops could grow. Elijah prayed, “Stop the rain, Lord! And it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. But when God said the time was right, again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. Prayer is a powerful. The aforementioned theologian wrote: We battle against [obstacles and barriers in life] continually with all our might, but the strongest shield we have is prayer.
“Is my faith alive? Is my faith real?” Those are important questions I need to ask myself. You need to ask yourself. For the answers, run some of the tests offered by the apostle James. Check your words. Are they kind and considerate? Do you need improvement like I do? Let’s go to God for his forgiveness for our past critical words and with his help work at what we say and how we say it. Check how you handle money. Have you been either wasteful or miserly? Do you need improvement like I do? Let’s go to God for his forgiveness for our spend-y or stingy past and with his help grow in joyful generosity. Check how you have treated others. Have you been self-centered or hurtful? Do you need improvement like I do? Let’s go to God for his forgiveness for our past and with his help work at changing how we deal with others. Check your prayer life. Have you neglected it, or have your prayers been all “Gimme-gimme” or “I want this; I want that”? Do you need improvement like I do? Let’s go to God for his forgiveness for our past weak prayer life and watch how his forgiving love strengthens our faith and improves the pulse, the heartbeat of faith.
Our going to heaven does not depend on our prayers. It depends on Jesus. But because of Jesus we can pray. That theologian we’ve been hearing from leaves us with one more thought: You cannot find a Christian without prayer, just as you cannot find a living person without a pulse. The pulse never stands still. It is always throbbing and beating. So it is with prayer. Prayer Is The Heartbeat Of Faith. Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (http://www.gracedowntown.org/) on October 28, 2007
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