How Should I Pray For Others?

Scripture: Colossians 1:9-14

Theme: Prayer

Paul shares with us three major things that we can pray for ourselves and for others – 1. To have the ability to be able to clearly and accurately hear God’s voice 2. To develop the desire to live a Holy Life 3. To allow the Holy Spirit to give us the power to live a Holy Life

INTRO:

Grace and Peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

I want to talk to you today about prayer.

There is nothing as simple and yet at times as complex and confusing as prayer.

When we look at prayer in its simplest form; it is the communication that goes on between human beings and the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. Prayer is like a conversation that happens between a child and their parent or between two people who are desiring a deeper love relationship.

We in the Church tend to complicate things when it comes to praying and prayers. All you have to do is to google the word prayer on the internet or begin to look at all the different books that have been written about prayer to understand that you can get lost in the whole idea of praying.

Literally billions of pages, thousands of website articles and podcasts have been written and made centering on prayer. People have written and spoken about:

+The correct language of prayer

+The correct posture of prayer

+The correct timing of prayer

+The correct spirit of prayer

None of that is bad but then again, a great deal of it has been foolish and harmful to say the least. Sometimes people have made prayer so difficult that after you have heard them or read their writings you want to just give up.

Prayer is simply talking to the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. Plain and simple.

You can use your own words or borrow those written by others. You can argue with God, complain to God, cry out to God, praise God, plead with God, open your heart to God and rest in God.

After all, that is what we see as we read about the lives of those written in both the Old and New Testament. We see people talking to God in all kinds of ways and in all kinds of places. At times they are using words, other times they are using tears or using their hands lifted to the LORD.

+Abraham negotiates with God during one prayer session.

+Moses spends a great deal of time complaining about the People of Israel in some of his prayer times.

+Hannah’s tears become her prayer language.

+Jonah prays from the belly of a great fish.

+The Early Church used worship as a way of praying.

+Ezra would pray laying with his face on the ground.

+King Solomon would pray with his hands lifted high.

As I have studied prayer, I believe that what is most important about prayer and praying is just praying. I think more than anything we need to be authentic in our praying. Prayer is just laying out our hearts to the LORD. Prayer is holding nothing back. Pray is just talking to the LORD.

I mean, it is not as if we are going to surprise the LORD with our words. He knows our hearts. He can see inside our minds.

+He can handle our complaints – Just ask Job.

+He can handle our high-mindedness – just ask the Apostle Paul.

+He can handle our broken hearts – Just ask Mary and Martha.

+He can handle our sins; our brokenness – Just ask King David.

+He can handle our fears and our anxieties – Just ask Esther.

Praying, talking to God is not always easy (on our part) and yet as we grow in our relationship with God it becomes so easy. We sometimes think of it as a cumbersome thing to do but the more we grow closer to the LORD the more we realize it is just two friends talking to one another. Two friends that as the grow closer to one another the lesser one (that would be us) more and more understands that we have been given such a powerful and wonderful gift – the gift of being able to talk to the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. The gift of being able to talk to the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. The gift of not only being able to talk to the LORD but being able to share time and space with Him.

This morning, in the passage that we have read from Paul’s letter to the Church at Colossae, he is sharing with the Church his prayer life for them.

Paul lists some 12 things in these few verses that he prays for them.

I think what is important for us to understand is that according to most Bible scholars there is a good chance that Paul was never able to visit this church except through his letters. There is good evidence that it was one of Paul’s disciples by the name of Epaphras that started the Church.