James 5:16b- "...The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."

In our devotionals for the past couple of weeks, we've been examining the subject of being Spirit-led. We've talked about being Spirit-led in the way we live our lives and in our study of Scripture. These things will help us to be as righteous in the eyes of the Lord as we possibly can.

With that in mind, I hope you can now see how we've progressed to the subject of this devotional- prayer. I'm not sure that there are many subjects in Scripture of more importance than this one. Prayer is our "direct line" to God, so to speak. It is one of our most special forms of communication with our Savior.

We've all heard the saying, "There's power in prayer." Believe me- that statement is very true. I know this from personal experience, as I'm sure many of you do as well. However, prayer is such a special and important thing that it can't be taken for granted. We must come to the Lord with the right attitude and in the right spirit if we want our prayers to be truly effective and powerful. That's what our text verse is trying to tell us. If there is unconfessed sin in our lives that has not been repented of before our Holy God, then our prayers will be limited in their effectiveness. Sin in our lives sets up walls between us and God, and those walls can only be torn down and full fellowship restored when sin is made right with God and our relationship with Him is right once again.

Prayer is something that we want to make an integral part of SGM Radio. That's why we have a prayer request forum for people to share things in and ask others to pray for them. Sometimes the best thing we can do for someone is to pray for them. Sometimes the knowledge that people are lifting our name before the Father is just the encouragement that we are looking for. I truly believe that the prayer forum is one of the most important forums on this message board.

But, before we pray, let's examine our lives. We need to open our hearts and minds and allow the Lord to show us anything that is keeping us from being as righteous in His eyes as we can be. Once those things are dealt with and made right, we will be able to tap into and experience the full power of prayer.

THANKS FOR THE REMINDER BRO CHAD. I THANK GOD FOR YOU AND YOUR MINISTRY MANY TIMES. KEEP UP THE GREAT MINISTRY GOD HAS BLESSED YOU WITH. YOU'RE TRULLY A BLESSING HERE TO ALL OF US. THANKS