Praying for each other: the believer’s mandate and privilege

By Dean Collins

If you have been following Jesus for very long you know how important it is to have people praying for you. We have all had those times when a situation emerged in our lives that is at minimum difficult and to you and to others might seem nearly impossible. Over the years I have had more than a few of these challenges. And in every one of them it was the prayers of many that sustained me and got me through. I am guessing that many of you can recall a time in your life when that was true for you as well. Prayer matters and it matters a lot.

Paul’s calls for prayer

Prayer is a common theme in Paul’s letters to various churches. Throughout his epistles we read of his prayers for individuals, various groups and cities, and for the churches he helped establish. Paul called his readers to pray for many different people by name. Sometimes Paul called for prayer about certain tensions or divisions between individuals and between groups. His prayers were for unity, for endurance, and for the light of the gospel to be spread far and wide.

Paul knew long before we arrived on the scene in our moment of difficulty that prayer was the key not only to survival but to living, even thriving, in moments of great stress and with impossible circumstances.

Many prayers of the apostle Paul’s are worthy of repeating as prayers for each other. Paul’s prayer in Colossians 1 is a great example. I don’t know if my friends used this exact prayer when they prayed for me, but I have felt the power of their prayers that must have been similar.

Paul’s prayers for believers

Paul began where we must begin our prayers: “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.” When we come to God to pray for anyone, we begin with thanksgiving that God loves them and desires a relationship with them and that in Christ we have a relationship with them as well. Because Jesus loves us we can and must love one another.

Paul said that ever since he learned of the faith of these believers he has not ceased to pray for them. That is a commitment not only to Jesus and his gospel, but it demonstrates a commitment to Paul’s confidence in the hope and the power of the gospel expressed through others. Without fellow believers in Jesus choosing to live faithfully and and with the gospel mission in mind, the world will never know God’s greatest gift, Jesus.

Our prayers for believers

Here is a list of things you might pray when you learn of the faith of a brother or sister in Christ. It doesn’t really matter if you know that he or she has a great need today; they will soon enough. And we all will need someone to pray like this for us. It is our privilege, our responsibility, and our opportunity to watch the gospel of Jesus spread far and wide.

Ways to pray that we find from Paul’s prayer in Colossians 1:

- that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding
- in order to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him
- that they would bear fruit in every good work
- that they would increase in the knowledge of God
- that they would be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might
- that they would have endurance and patience with joy
- that they, too, would express thanks to God the Father, who has qualified them to share in the inheritance of the saints in light

Paul concludes his prayer with a declaration over believers in the Colossian church. This declaration is ours as well. Read it. Believe it. Declare it out loud. And finally pray that we would daily live it out in the world around us: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

If you are following Jesus as Lord, then the transfer has occurred. Let’s pray we live as the people of God, shining the light of God everywhere around us.

Your time with God’s Word
‭‭Colossians‬ ‭1:3-14‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Photo by Rosie Sun at unsplash.com

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