“The prayer of a righteous man or woman is powerful and effective and accomplishes much”.
James 5:16

What Christians understand as ‘The Church’ the Bible indicates means the people who believe what the Bible says about Jesus. The scriptures tell us that He is the Son of God who loves us, who died for us so that our sins could be washed away because of His sacrifice and that we would be made whole – forgiven, healed, restored and accepted - and no longer separated from a Loving Heavenly Father (the person many people refer to as ‘God’). Recently, (July 2008) Dr Bernard Blessing from Accra, Ghana in West Africa returned to Perth to encourage ‘The Church’ or, ‘The Body of Christ’ or, ‘The Bride of Christ’ to take hold of the Bible, read it and believe it. He encouraged us to deliberately allow the scriptures to enter our hearts and our minds and then to believe that it was alive and vibrant in us to do all the things that the Bible said that it could and would do.

His message was preached powerfully and if I may say so, uniquely. I say uniquely advisedly because most usually, if not always, a congregation of believers in Christ and those within the audience who are not yet followers of Jesus are left waiting for the preacher to pray for them in order that Jesus might meet whatever need individuals in the auditorium have as a lack in their life. These ‘needs’ usually fall into five main categories – salvation, cleansing from sin, healing, financial and relational deficit. Not so with Dr Bernard. He is a man who preaches what the Word of God - and therefore Jesus - offers to be the God given right of every man and woman, boy and girl who believes in Jesus. I may need to repeat that or, at least to make what I am trying to say easier to understand. We, the hearers of the Word of God, need to take hold of the scriptures and believe them for ourselves. Just as the followers of Martin Luther in the sixteenth century were taught that they had direct access to God the Father through Jesus His Son without an intermediary (priest), Dr Bernard taught that we who believe the scriptures have direct access to the provision of God the Father. How so? Through Jesus His Son by accessing His Word through faith and in prayer most times without need of an anointed man or woman of God praying for us or laying hands on us.

Often Christians – and I am one of them – say, “Oh but I know that”. But do we really? If we genuinely do ‘know that’ or, ‘believe’ this then why is it that so very many individual Christians and Christians corporately as the ‘Body of Christ’ appear, for the most part at least, so disempowered or as I believe the Spirit of God showed me – so fractured?

On Saturday morning (12 July) I was privileged to speak at a Men’s Breakfast at the Perth Christian Life Centre in Canning Vale. After the usual ‘nosh up’ provided on such occasions we joined together in some praise and worship of Jesus. Then we heard a testimony from Lewis Flood, a seventeen year old young man who had been wonderfully and miraculously healed of a painful condition in both his knees. He also shared how he had received a healing for an emotional hurt. What interested me was that Jesus had healed him through a combination of Lewis believing what is written about healing in the Word of God and prayer.

Over five days and seven meetings Dr Bernard taught his audiences the absolute necessity for a believer in Jesus to read and believe the scriptures. He then went on to emphasise that the believer in Jesus had to fertilize the power of the Word in his or her life through prayer. I realise that it has taken me a while to get to the heart of Dr Bernard’s teaching but I believe it will have been worth the wait. His seven sermons emphasising the centrality of a belief in the Word of God and prayer for a fruitful, blessed and empowered life were set in the context of what the implication of this is for the Body of Christ in Perth – not merely for the Christians in the local church who hosted his meetings. More than this, Dr Bernard was speaking about the ‘Bride of Christ’ in Australia in the context of our destiny as a nation and our geographical region.

Depending on your particular brand of theology you will believe that, for example, healing of a physical or psychological condition and some form of deliverance from sin or addictive behaviour or relational disharmony has been provided for either since the foundation of the world, or when Jesus was stripped, whipped, beaten and spat upon, or by his suffering and death on a cross at Calvary, or when He said, “It is finished” as He hung on the cross, or when He rose from the dead on the third day, or when Mary the Mother of Jesus whispered a prayer to her Son in heaven, or when one of the ‘saints’ said a word of prayer to Jesus in heaven, or when the Holy Spirit showed up in a church meeting or ‘service’ or when some especially appointed and anointed person layed his/her hands on you. However, the Bible actually says that first we or you should pray – and then the answer will come. As Dr Bernard said, Jesus has made provision for all that we need pertaining to life but often we seem to have a problem of access. Prayer – my prayer for me and mine and your prayer for you and yours and usually not somebody else’s prayer - is the means of accessing the provision. What type of prayer? The prayer of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ because of His shed blood. You see I believe that when the scriptures tell us that the same spirit dwells within me/you that raised Christ from the dead and that this same spirit will quicken/strengthen my/our/your mortal body by implication this means our prayers will be quickened. I really need to give that a go. Today, right now.

Part Two: More Prayer for a Fractured Face

“The prayer of a righteous man or woman is powerful and effective and accomplishes much”. James 5:16