Smelly prayer
Businesses are deeply tuned to their ROI. Those who buy stocks in companies should be concerned about a lack of ROI. Everyone understands that a return on investment is ultimately important for longterm financial viability in the business world. There must be profits, in other words.
In 1 Kings 18, there’s a profound return on investment. And there are prophets involved. The passage describes the showdown between God’s prophet, Elijah and the prophets of Baal. I’d encourage you to read 1 Kings 18:20-36 for context. It’s a prophetic smackdown. 450 to 1.
Elijah threw down the challenge to the prophets of Baal. Pray to your god and ask him to set your burnt offering on fire. Elijah said that he would do the same, praying to his God, after they demonstrated that Baal had the power to do what they asked.
You can imagine the results. Elijah literally taunts the hapless prophets of Baal all day long. No matter their energy, their dancing, even their self-mutilation, nothing happens when they pray to Baal. They have zero return on their investment.
Yet, the text reveals that when Elijah then stepped forward and prayed to God, fire fell. The sacrifice was consumed. The false prophets were first humiliated and then executed.
But why?
But the why of the contest is supremely important. Elijah’s investment in prayer didn’t just bring a return of enhanced status for himself. He didn’t grow rich. He never capitalized on this event.1 So why did Elijah do it?
We find the answer in verse 37. It’s there that we see the content and reason for his prayer:
“LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, today let it be known that you are God in Israel and I am your servant, and that at your word I have done all these things. Answer me, LORD! Answer me so that this people will know that you, the LORD, are God and that you have turned their hearts back.”
Elijah prayed earnestly with a goal of God recapturing the hearts of Israel. Elijah deeply craved a turning of hearts back to God - a spiritual return on investment.
When we pray earnestly for people’s hearts to turn to God, we know we are praying prayers that God loves to answer.
Will you pray?
What would it look like for you to begin praying for someone - perhaps many someones? Will you make an investment in prayer in 2026 for the people to turn to (or turn back to) God?
In the New Testament, Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist is the one who precedes and announces the ministry of Jesus. An angel told John’s dad, Zachariah, that John’s ministry would be characterized this way:
“He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous, to make ready for the Lord a prepared people.” (Luke 1:16-17)
Notice that John the Baptist would precede Jesus “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” Notice also that “He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.”
John’s ministry would have a spiritual return on his investment of hearts turning to faith in Jesus. That was the entire why that John served. He pointed people to Jesus.
Will you pray?
Will you pray that God would turn people’s hearts back to Him? And will you offer yourself as an instrument in God’s hands for people to hear and return to God?
Toward the end of the New Testament, Jesus’ half-brother James wrote about Elijah. Seems relevant, right? What did James say?
In the context of prayer, James said:
“Elijah was a human being as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit.” (James 5:17-18)
This referenced the passage in 1 Kings 18 we looked at earlier. After the showdown with the prophets of Baal, Elijah stepped forward and prayed for rain. The land had been in severe drought for three and a half years! After his prayers, it poured.
It wasn’t the status of the prophet. James is quick to point out that Elijah “was a human being as we are.” It wasn’t the size of the cloud in 1 Kings. We’re told there that after his prayer, Elijah saw that, “There’s a cloud as small as a man’s hand coming up from the sea.”2 It was the investment in prayer and Elijah’s deep-rooted belief in Who he was praying to and What he was praying for.
Elijah prayed to the God who created heaven and earth. He prayed for people’s hearts to be turned to God.
Will you pray?
You are invited to play a significant role in what God is doing in our day! Our prayers for people are a pleasant and fragrant offering to God. In Revelation 1:8, we are given a vision of our prayers rising like aromatic incense before the Lord:
“…the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and golden bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” (Revelation 1:8)
This perspective of fragrant prayers before God is enhanced by these words from a sermon by John Piper:
The best thing of all is that the food God loves most is to answer prayer. When God gets hungry for some special satisfaction, he seeks out a prayer to answer. Our prayer is the sweet aroma from the kitchen ascending up into the King’s chambers making him hungry for the meal. But the actual enjoyment of the meal is his own work to answer our prayer. The food of God is to answer our prayers.
The most wonderful thing about the Bible is that it reveals a God who can only satisfy his appetite for joy by answering prayers. He has not deficiency in himself that he needs to fill up, so he gets all his satisfaction by filling up the deficiencies of people who pray.3
So… Pray for people’s hearts to turn toward God. Pray for your family. Your friends. Your coworkers and classmates. Pray for one person each day. Pray with conviction. Pray with surrender. Give people to God in fervent prayer.
James encourages us still:
“The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.” (James 5:16)
In fact, if you keep reading, Elijah fled for his life.
1 Kings 18:44
The Weapon Serves the Wielding Power, John Piper (Desiring God: January 6, 1985). I’d encourage you to read his sermon there. In it, Piper gives “Five Ways That the Word of God Serves Our Prayers.” They are wonderfully encouraging.
Yes yes yes,, amen,,, Oh Jeff, I have prayed for decades for the salvation of my husband and children, and I admit there are times when I am so disheartened and discouraged, because I see no fruit, no evidence of any movement toward God.. But,,, I cannot see peoples hearts, only God can see and judge anyones heart. And my responsibility is to KEEP PRAYING, faithfully, pleading, , AND, speaking the gospel to them,, and living the gospel in my life before them. And now to do the same for three grandbabies. Lord Jesus help me.. I am so weak in and of myself, only Your grace is sufficient for power is perfected in weakness... Thank you Jeff for this good to the point reminder to remain faithful in prayer.. and witnessing.