Pray For Each Other

                 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:16 NIV)

I got a phone call almost an hour ago, asking me to help someone by writing a devotional that was, in a sense, an ad for the prayer walk meetings at our church on Wednesday nights from 6:30-7:30. Her target audience is people who have survived cancer, if I remember correctly. I expanded it a little to include people are might feel too sick, too weak, or too incapacitated in some other way, and the verse above came to mind. I liked the result well enough to decide to share it with you…

There are times when we need prayer. Our bodies, thoughts, feelings, relationships, circumstances, or spirits need help. We need to be on the receiving end of the prayers for one another. The prayers of others are powerful and effective, and we need them. We need forgiveness and healing.

There are other times when what we really need is to be the ones doing the praying. Our prayers for others and the love that those prayers show may be the powerful and effective thing they need in their lives. Those same prayers may help heal us. It might not be the sort of healing we want. We may not think we need the sort of healing it produces, but God ties our praying for one another to healing, God knows what is best for us, and God loves us. Our loving Him by praying to Him and our loving one another by praying for one another is part of that best and His love for us.

Over the past two or three years, Pastor Ben DiStefano has begun the year with an emphasis on prayer. For most of the year, First Alliance has hosted a prayer meeting on the first Wednesday of each month. The pastor’s Prayer Partners pray during the services, and a prayer team is available to pray  at the altar at the end of each service. This summer, he has established another opportunity to pray each Wednesday evening (instead of the once/month sessions). Participants are invited to walk in the residential areas across the street from the church and pray for the people living there. Others who wish to can walk around the church and pray for the church with everything and everyone involved. There is even an opportunity for those with diminished mobility. We have been praying in the prayer garden, and if someone would like to join us but can’t reach the prayer garden, we will gladly move down to the area under the covered entrance (east side of the building.)

You may need others to pray for you. You may think there’s nothing you can do, except pray. But the prayers of a righteous person are powerful and effective. You might be the righteous person I need to have praying for me. Come join us…

You may live a thousand miles from First Alliance Church, but you can still either join us by praying during the 6:30-7:30 (EDT) time slot wherever you are. Or, you can start your own prayer group so that you can pray for others to be healed, and find healing and blessing for yourself.