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

by Susan Henson

NEW AUTHOR: Susan Henson is the proud mother of four grown children and is the founder of Pharaoh's Daughter (a local ministry to imprisoned moms and their kids).

I have often read this scripture and hoped that one day I might be righteous enough that my prayers would be powerful and effective. Perhaps, after walking with Jesus for a long time … well … surely I must be a little more righteous than when I was first getting to know Him. And if I’m a little more righteous now, my prayers must be a little more powerful and a little more effective, right?

I couldn’t have been more wrong. I had the false notion that it was all about me, my righteousness, my goodness … what I would become over time.

But my righteousness, your righteousness, our righteousness is a done deal, completed at the cross. In his death, Jesus takes away all our unrighteousness and, in its place, shares with us all of his righteousness. When we choose to follow Jesus, we become righteous.

We do not have to wait for our prayers to be powerful and effective. Because of Jesus, we ARE righteous, and so our prayers ARE powerful and effective … NOW!

As the prophet Isaiah said: “I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”

Have you chosen to follow Jesus and receive his righteousness? What sort of difference has that made in your prayer life?

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