Reflection on God's Word

REASONS TO PRAY

by Tim Thomas

August 28, 2007

Ephesians 6:18-24

The Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus closes with final reminders, requests, and salutations. The first half of this section focuses on prayer and requests for prayer. We learn that prayer is to be an integral part of the Christian life, because Paul tells us to pray at all times. That is, let every part of your day be punctuated with prayer.

Paul says the prayer is to be "in the Spirit". What does this mean, and how do we do it? I think that what this means is that while we can speak to God about anything we want and ask Him for anything we want, just as we would in a conversation with a person, yet with the Holy Spirit living in us, we ought to listen to His guidance, so that we can direct and shape our prayers in a way that is pleasing to God and in accordance with His will. When we pray in the Spirit -- when we are led by the heart of God -- we might expect special focus and special success.

God in heaven -- to whom we typically see ourselves praying -- is the same God living in us, because God is One. The part of God that is in us is usually thought of as being the Spirit (though Jesus suggested in John 15 that it is also He and the Father who live in us, and so we really cannot separate the persons of the Trinity), while we tend to think of our prayers as being made to the Father, and often think of them as going through the Son (Jesus). The Spirit knows the heart of the Father, and He can reveal to us how to pray His heart.

Pentecostals often say that praying in the Spirit means to pray in tongues (that is, with a private prayer language that is unknown to the person using it). While praying in tongues might be understood as one type of prayer to be used, the verse says "all kinds of prayer", so Pentecostals should not limit their understanding of this passage to praying in tongues. A natural question might even be, "How can one make requests if you pray in a language you do not even understand?" The first response might be, "You can't." However, it is not uncommon for someone who prays in tongues to begin praying about a request using their regular human language, and then get to a point when they either run out of words or feel that the Holy Spirit would want them to pray in tongues regarding the request so that He could express things that their minds would not be able to express well.

The Apostle Paul exhorts us to "be alert". Perhaps this refers back to his command to pray in the Spirit. That is, unless we are alert, we may miss the gentle voice of the Spirit. While Paul said we should pray "all kinds" of requests, in the second part of verse 18, he tells us one type of request we should pray: for all the saints. Here, he is using "saint" to mean anybody who is a co-follower of Jesus. Most of us know instinctively to pray for the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ, but it is comforting to see that it is Biblical for us to do so.

Paul goes on to request prayer specifically for him. As an apostle and one who tells others about Jesus who have never heard of Him, Paul desires not only to have the right words to communicate effectively, but also that he wouldn't hold back for fear of what people might do to him if their hearts arent open to receiving the Good News about Jesus. I desire that kind of prayer for me, and I'm hoping that everyone reading this might also desire that kind of prayer. As we share our faith, it is sometimes difficult to know what words might impact the heart of the listener. That's why Paul asks for "words" to be given to him, because God knows what words people need to hear.

Paul also prays for fearlessness. Most of us don't want to offend others, so we are not as fearless as we could or should be in declaring the mystery of the gospel. As a result, we often don't talk about our faith in any meaningful way to others. It's ironic that at the point of writing, Paul is already in chains because of declaring the gospel, and yet he wants to continue in fearlessness so that he might declare it some more. While I am in favor of making personal resolutions for change -- such as deciding to declare the Good News to one person each month -- maybe the reason I do not share as often as I would like is not in poor resolutions, but insufficient prayer by me and others on my behalf that I might be fearless. Perhaps we should agree together to pray for each other for fearlessnes!

If prayer isn't useful in bringing about real changes on earth, then Paul's emphasis on so much prayer seems to be a huge waste of time. We could be out doing useful things with the time that we spend on prayer. I must conclude from this emphasis that "prayer moves mountains" -- as Jesus said. How it moves mountains is less clear to me. It is amazing to me that God can have things on His heart to do, but somehow he wants to speak them to us ("pray in the Spirit") so that we can ask Him for them, so that it will be done. I don't mean to suggest that God never does anything on His own initiative without us asking, but I am saying that some things He does not do without our asking! This also means that some things that God wants to accomplish simply are not done because no one asks.

Paul considers himself an ambassador of the Gospel, which is really an ambassador for the Kingdom of God to the kingdom of this world. He also writes of this in chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians. The role of an ambassador is to represent accurately the perspective and desires of his or her home country to a foreign government, while residing in the foreign country. Does that change the way you think about your life here on earth? Each follower of Christ is called to be an ambassador.

In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul says that as an ambassador he has been given the message of reconciliation. That is, while there has been a genuine division or separation experienced between God and each person -- due to a genuine offense on the part of each person -- Jesus died on the cross so that the offense can be forgiven, and that there can be true reconciliation and restoration between each person and God. The way of reconciliation is to gladly and boldly accept Jesus's death as the means of satisfying the debt we owed for our offense, and just as boldly walking in a new and intimate friendship with God. We might think of people living in the kingdom of the world as refugees from the Kingdom of God, and we are announcing an offer of repatriation, with full rights if these refugees return via the means provided. As ambassadors of reconciliation, we are called to announce this offer of reconciliation.

Paul concludes his letter with passing to the readers who are co-lovers of Jesus the peace and love and grace that come from God. May all of us whose hearts are given to God experience the same!