Because God is sovereign; because God is in control; because God has designed prayer; because God has designed you to be His child in Christ, you should, you better, pray, pray, pray, without ceasing.
God Wants Me to Pray Without Ceasing
Ephesians 1:15-16 b
Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church
Turn to Ephesians 1:15-16. Ephesians 1:15-16. Coming into our passage this morning, I want to remind you that Paul has just explained the wonderful riches that we have all been blessed with in our special relationship with God. In the first 14 verses of chapter 1, Paul has described the merciful grace that God has had upon us, and how God lavished upon us privilege after privilege of eternal treasure that we did not previously deserve. Paul declares the deep rich truths of being God's elect, predestined, and adopted children. The plan was made before the foundation of the world, which means that God thought about you way back then. God has known you for a long time folks, and though you were separated from Him in sin, He brought you to Himself at the proper time. He planned for you to be saved, and you had to be saved. There is no other alternative for God's elect. Paul knew these facts in an intimate way. The theology behind our election, predestination, and foreordination was a driving force in Paul's teaching ministry.
In the context of the Ephesians letter, Paul had been hearing the reports about the various Gentile churches of the Asiatic region. Evidently Paul was not able to visit each church as he wanted to. But through his ministry, other godly men were being raised up, and were spreading the good news of Christ. Churches were emerging all over the region. In 1:13-14, Paul says that these people believed after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of their salvation. Paul says that because he had heard about this, he knows that the people of these various churches are sealed in Christ with the Holy Spirit of promise. This by the way, is the true definition of the perseverance of the Saints. The determination of your perseverance is found in God's election and predestination of you. The means of our perseverance was instituted in His Son through His crucifixion, and resurrection. The timeline of when your salvation was actualized was when you received Christ Jesus as your Lord and Savior, as Paul says in this same epistle,
"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;" Ephesians 2:8
Your salvation is completely a gift. We are saved through faith, and of course, our faith demonstrates our perseverance. The operating revelation of all who are eternally spiritually saved, is faith, which is our belief. What this means for you my dear Christian brothers and sisters, is that you know that you know you are saved because you believe in Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior. Paul has heard of the fame of the belief of the saints of the Gentile churches, and so Paul says,
"13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation--having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory." (Ephesians 1:13-14)
This is the definition of the perseverance of the saints. You heard the good news message. You believed. You were sealed in Christ with His Holy Spirit. You will receive your inheritance, where your mortal body is redeemed into a glorious afterlife as God's own possession, and it is all to the praise of God's own glory. This may not be the definition of the perseverance of the saints from some creedal tradition. It may not be the definition according to some theological system, but this is the definition of the perseverance of the saints, also rightly known as the perseverance of God's set apart ones. It is from here, that Paul goes directly into our passage under study this morning. Please read it along with me at this time,
"For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, 16 I do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;" Ephesians 1:15-16
This morning, I ask you to please prepare your heart for the sacred preaching of God's word in this sermon titled,
God Wants Me to Pray Without Ceasing [prayer]
In the context of the passage we just read, Paul the apostle is about to launch into a lengthy prayer for the saints. This morning we are going to learn some things about prayer from what Paul starts out with at the beginning of His prayer launch. We are also going to learn from some other scriptures. We are going to learn:
1) the Biblical revelation of prayer.
2) the common application of prayer.
3) what often becomes the uncommon application of prayer, (not ceasing to give thanks for God's choice of others, not ceasing to make mention of others in prayer.
4) the intentional application through intentional discipline.
/1/
In examining the Biblical revelation concerning prayer, we notice that Paul says in our passage,
"16 I do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;" Ephesians 1:15-16
The first thing we need to recognize concerning the Biblical revelation to pray, is that Paul says that he does not have just one prayer that he prays, or has prayed. Paul says that he has "prayers," which means that Paul prays a lot, and the implication is that Paul prays as a matter of intentionally disciplined habit. The reason for this is because it is God's will that you pray. I am amazed when I find out that many of us Christians do not realize that God expects us to pray, and He commands us to pray. But the fact of the matter is that God really does expect you to pray, and He commands it.
Whenever you are starting to contemplate something that has just hit you really hard in life; like, for example, your engine overheat light has just come on and you are stuck in a traffic jam on the highway, and you can't get to an exit. Or then something happens like you end up ruining your car engine, or your transmission, or something like that, and now you have an unexpected expenditure that you don't have the money to pay for; and so you're panicking, or you are crying over it. These are the kinds of times that most Christians might typically pray, and they are not times that we pray because we think it is commanded. You pray because you are in a rough situation, and so you do what most Christians do in an emergency or a crisis situation. But, here is the thing that we've got to understand--when we are going through the emergency-crises kinds of things, God knows what we are going through. God knows what you consider to be the emergencies in your life. But, God knows something else. God knows that whether you pray about your situation or not, He expects you to pray as a matter of command.
An example of the expectation to pray is seen where Paul gives instructions to Timothy in 1 Timothy concerning order among the churches. Let me give you a little background on what the situation was that was going on there. Evidently, among the churches that Timothy had charge over, there was a kind of system that was instituted for taking care of widows. Paul gets word of some abuses that were going on in the system, and some irresponsibility among family members in taking care of their own. And so, Paul gets on the subject of true widows. Now, what I want us all to notice as we are going to look at this, is that Paul recognizes something that is an expectation of godly widows; He says,
"Now she who is really a widow, and left alone, trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day." 1 Timothy 5:5
There are a lot of folks who don't want to recognize that it is expected for them to pray. They may not tell you what they are thinking, but what they want to say is,
I don't need to pray about it. I'll just trust God with the outcome.
How many of you have heard that statement before? It sounds godly doesn't it? Maybe you've had thoughts that are somewhere along the same lines as that. Maybe you've thought something like,
Why pray, when God is sovereignly in control of all things anyway?
Doesn't God know everything already?
Isn't God going to do what He has determinied to do?
It seems so right, so theologically deep, and pious to philosophize about God's determination, and think we are justified in putting prayer on the shelf as if it doesn't really matter. You know, it is good to declare God's sovereignty and determination of all things. Paul the apostle declares God's sovereignty in all his epistles, and has been doing so in Ephesians. It is right to recognize that we need to trust God with what He has foreordained to pass. But, to go outside of God's revelation that He has given to us; in other words, to go outside the dictates of scripture, and start to think we have discovered something in our cleverness that casts aside what God expects and commands of us, is called the error of false doctrine. It is humanistic philosophy cloaked in a lot of pious language. According to Biblical revelation, rather than philosophy, we see God's actual expectation that He prescribes. We see that Paul expected Christian widows to already be trusting in God, don't we? Paul says it right? He says that a widow left alone,
"... trusts in God ..."
So, she already trusts in God and His sovereigny, and so you can either wrongly say,
Well, there is no reason for her to pray then?
Doesn't she trust in God?--why pray, if you really trust in God already?
Now we could ask that, or we can agree with God's preceptive revelation, where we read that she, in a true biblical expression of being a faithful Christian,
"trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day." 1 Timothy 5:5
Herein lies the real issue when it comes to the Biblical revelation to pray. Whether you make little of God, or whether you make so much of God's determination that you decide prayer is meaningless, the bottom line is that the main issue is a trust issue. You see, if you really trust in our huge sovereign determining God according to Biblical revelation, rather than philosophy, then you will pray, and you will pray expecting God to answer you according to how He explains it works in His word. Prayer is expected of you my dear Christian. Prayer is expected because prayer is commanded of you. In Matthew 6, when Jesus taught His students concerning prayer He started out the teaching with the expectation in verse 5, saying,
"5 When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; ..." Matthew 6:5
This is a clear expectation. Jesus says "when you pray." He doesn't say,
"If you decide to pray--you know guys-- if you feel like it, and you really think it is necessary. If by chance, you just so happen to pray, then don't be like the hypocrites."
No, Jesus doesn't say anything remotely like that because Jesus expects his students to pray. Jesus repeats the expectation in verse 6,
"6 But you, when you pray, ..."
He repeats the expectation again in verse 7,
"17 And when you are praying, ..."
He commands it, and He did it Himself. Jesus prayed, and the scriptures record that Jesus prayed often. Jesus prayed at meals. Jesus prayed in the morning. Jesus prayed in the evening. Jesus prayed for Himself. Jesus prayed for Israel. Jesus prayed for His students. Jesus prayed, and Jesus prayed a lot. Jesus taught His students to pray, because Jesus expects it from His students. But then Jesus commands the expectation in verse 9 and He commands the expectation according to His prescribed manner, saying,
"9 Pray, then, in this way: ..." Matthew 6:9
Our first consideration here, is that God has given us revelation concerning prayer in His word. He shows us that He expects prayer and He also shows us that He commands prayer.
So, what do we need to be doing folks?
That's right, we need to be praying. We need to pray at meals. We need to pray in the morning. We need to pray in the evening. We need to pray for ourselves. We need to pray for our nation, and we need to pray for other Christians. We need to pray, and we need to being praying a lot. We find the command to pray in Colossians 4:2
"Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; praying at the same time for us as well," Colossians 4:2
We find the command to pray in 1 Thessalonians,
"17 pray without ceasing; 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
We find the command in Timothy,
"... I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men," 1 Timothy 2:11
Prayer is a command that is clearly revealed in God's word. God expects you and me to pray as a matter of our duty, but there is much more to this than mere duty. The command to pray to your God is a privilege that is bestowed on you as God's adopted child. We really need to understand the privilege that we have to be allowed to pray to God to begin with. Without being the righteousness of God in Christ, God would not listen to our prayers, God says in His word,
"29 Yahweh is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of the righteous." Proverb 15:29
It is amazing that we can take such a privilege for granted, but we often do. We must realize that we approach the throne of God with boldness that people who live in our own neighborhoods do not have. Lost people do not have this privilege. You are the righteousness of God in Christ, so He hears your prayer. So, your loving Father's revelation to you in analyzing Paul's words is that it is His will that you, (His righteous child in Christ), exercise your privilege, and pray. Another aspect of God's revelation concerning prayer that we glean from Paul, is that we need to recognize that Paul says that he prays unceasingly.
"16 I do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;" Ephesians 1:16
The way we know that Paul prays unceasingly, is because He is giving thanks unceasingly, and so what Paul tells us, is that his habit was to give thanks to God for the various Christians of the Asiatic region, as a part of His unceasing discipline of prayer. God is giving us revelation concerning the fact that God wants His people to pray over and over again, making mention of the same things over and over again. There are so many instances of this in scripture. Jesus prayed for the same thing over and over again in the garden of Gethsemene. Paul prayed for the same thing over and over again in asking God to take away His thorn in the flesh. But, sometimes we Christians can be lazy. We can even be theologically lopsided, and so it is easy for us to wonder if the examples of continuous, non ceasing prayer are really examples of something that we need to be doing too. Paul gives the answer in 1 Thessalonians, where he commands,
"17 pray without ceasing; 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:17
Praying without ceasing is God's express will for you. This is Biblical revelation, so rather than ask clever questions to try and wrangle your way out of your responsibility concerning God's will for you in Christ Jesus, you need to pray, pray, pray. This is the biblical revelation concerning prayer.
/2/
Now I want to quickly mention the second thing concerning prayer that we can learn from; it is the common application of prayer that most Christians are familiar with.
The common application of prayer is to pray for ourselves.
Most of us know exactly what I mean by this being the common application. It is like I said already, whenever we are stressed out, we pray about our situation, (and we rightly should). We want God to help us, and God wants to help us in accord with our prayers. We might be having a financial problem, and so we don't know where the money is going to come from, or we don't know where, or why the money keeps on going, so we pray. Whenever we get sick, we pray that we would be healed, or at least relieved from the pain. God wants us to do this. In tight dangerous situations, we pray for our protection. Sometimes we pray for protection even though there may not be a tight dangerous situation. We might be confused about something. We don't understand, and so we pray and ask God for wisdom. James says that if any of you lacks wisdom, then ask God for it. It is a very common application for people to pray for their businesses to succeed, or to win a sporting event. All of these kinds of prayers are for self. Paul prayed this kind of prayer concerning his thorn in the flesh. He wanted it gone, so he asked for it to be removed. In the true biblical sense of praying often, he prayed three times that the Lord would take the thorn away. It was a personal prayer. God answered it by saying "no." God said my grace is sufficient for you, Paul, because my power is perfected in weakness. When Jesus prayed for Himself in the garden of Gethsemene, He was at the point of death in an anxiety experience of grief. He kept pacing back to check on His students, and then He would go over to another area of the garden and He would pray the same thing for Himself again and again. Finally, an angel came down and strengthened Him. His prayer was answered, but the main point is that He prayed for Himself. Praying for ourselves is biblical, and it is a common thing to do.
/3/
But I want us to consider what often becomes the uncommon application of prayer. What can become uncommon in our application of prayer is found in Paul's prayer where Paul does not mention praying for his own needs, but he says,
"16 I do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;" Ephesians 1:15-16
The point I am trying to make here is that way too often we do not make it our intentional practice of not ceasing to give thanks for others, and not ceasing to make mention of others in prayer. Okay, I really want you to pay close attention to what I am about to say. Notice that Paul gives thanks to God for the Asian Christians. This was Paul's act of love in recognizing others that God wants him to recognize in a godly way. This is what God wants you and I to do too. It is the opposite of the spite, anger, and hurt that many Christians in our present age are so fond of thinking concerning other Christians. It is the opposite of spoiled spiritual immaturity. It is the opposite of the smug, gossipy malcontent who breaks fellowship. I am amazed at how Christians take each other for granted today. Paul lived by a different standard. Paul lived by the biblical standard for living out Christianity, and so Paul says that he and the rest of the apostolic band, gives God the same thanks concerning the Thessalonians. It's almost the exact same wording as what he says in the Ephesian letter. In Thessalonians he says,
"We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers;" 1 Thessalonians 1:2
First and foremost, what this means is that Paul is being reverent like he should be reverent. Paul recognizes the value of Christians that we all need to recognize. Paul recognizes that people are saved by the determination of God. This is why Paul says that He gives thanks to God for them. Paul does not give thanks for the decisions of people in electing God. Paul is not saying,
Thanks guys. That was really smart of you when you received Christ. Thanks for joining up with the group, and making God happy.
Paul is not thanking the Christians of the Asian areas for anything that they have done. Paul is thanking God, and God alone. Another thing we recognize is that Paul is not giving thanks for concepts like circumstance, or randomness, and chance. What we are witnessing in Paul's giving of thanks is something that is so very important in terms of biblical election. Paul gives thanks to God for the Asian Christians because Paul knows that God, and God alone, is to be thanked for them. Paul makes it even plainer in his second letter to the Thessalonians,
"But we should always give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, [why?] because God has elected you from the beginning for salvation through setting apart by the Spirit and faith in the truth." 2 Thessalonians 2:13
This is a lesson that we really need to learn for application in our own prayer lives. But, before you are going to start praying this way, you must believe that every single Christian you know, is someone special. You must believe that every single Christian is someone you need to really be thanking God for. Then, after you recognize, and believe, that this is what God wants from you, you need to check your attitude. I will tell you why; one of the purest ways of manifesting Christ's royal law of loving God, and loving others, is to love God by loving others in thanking Him for their salvation and gathering them into His church. I ask you;
How often do you thank God for the salvation of others?
I'm not talking about family members, or friends. I'm talking about that church member that you don't like. You know it is easy to thank God for people that you like. It is even somewhat manageable to tolerate someone you don't like. But, a real test of your Holy Spirit led love, your grace, your forgiveness, your own humbleness, and your own sensitivity to what God demands from you as one of His children, is whether you are giving sincere thanks to the Father for adopting that person into His family. This reminds me of a statistic that is popular to quote among church analysts nowadays. Basically, in the United States the number one growth factor in churches is not evangelism, but what is called transfer growth. The latest statistic is that 80% of Christians are growing churches numerically because they are evacuating one to go test out another one. If this statistic is true, then that means that this so-called church growth statistic is also a church shrinking statistic. What I mean is that transfer growth means that there are a lot of churches that are being transferred from, that are shrinking, as others are growing. Further, the statistics also show that the churches that are growing are the ones where you can disappear into the crowd. The rate of exchange is bizarre. One recent study showed that 1 in 4 church attenders will leave a church for another one within five years. These are interesting statistics, birthed in our postmodern, self centered Christianity. If our commitment, (as contemporary Christians) to pray is anything like the bizarre trend of non-commitment to a local fellowship, then we are in bad shape folks. I want to focus on those kinds of figures in connection with my own experiences with helping pastors with three church starts before being used by the Lord to start Bridgeway. From my experience with those other churches and with Bridgeway, transfer of fellowships, and the sin of dropping out of biblically defined fellowship altogether, is usually traced to problems that the people had with other beloved Christians who God has elected from the beginning for salvation through setting apart by the Spirit. Moving away to another area, or worship style, is unfortunately, rarely the reason for evacuating "the household of God, the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth," as Paul calls the local church fellowship in 1 Timothy 3:15. Now, I bring this up because this reflects what I see as an underlying trend that is occurring in the way Christians in our culture are relating to one another today. It is a trend in the way people treat their pastors, elders, and fellow believers in the body of Christ. Far too often, we are losing the awe inspiring gratefulness to God for saving those who are our brothers and sisters by His specific determination, and we are replacing it with unappreciative thoughts of spite against those whom God has elected as His trophies of His grace. It is not just the election of brothers and sisters we should be thanking God for, but also their particular personality traits; their particular calling in life ministry; their particular gifts that God has given them. The church is seeing this loss of awe and reverence for other Christians in our church families being reflected in the sociological buzz word of our sin saturated culture. What I mean is that the church is starting to look like the pandemic of "dysfunction" that is plaguing the American family. The social disease of our day that I am talking about is called the "dysfunctional family." Yes, the contemporary church is looking more like a dysfunctional family than a functional family every single day. The question is,
Are you being a part of the disfunction?
Are you?
Or,
Are you making an intentional effort to please your Lord by being part your true biblical function of the body of Christ?
Are you praying for the body?
Jesus even said, to pray for your enemies in Matthew 5:44.
How many times have you prayed for that Christian brother or sister who has offended you?
How many times have you thanked God for them specifically?
How many times have you prayed for that Christian brother or sister who has personality traits that you don't like?
How many times have you thanked God for electing that person, and placing that person in your life?
I strongly urge you right now, if you don't get anything else out of this sermon, make a note to yourself to pray for all those Christians who get on your nerves; thank God for creating them, and thank God for putting them in your life.
How many times have you prayed for pastors out there in other churches that have doctrinal beliefs, or they have ways of worshipping that you disagree with?
You know, those men of God are not your enemies. They are your brothers, and they may not do everything perfectly, but they are laboring over the body in all of its imperfections, while being imperfect themselves. You will let the whole world know that you don't like that particular Christian leader, of which, according to the scriptures, you are not to make an accusation toward without witnesses to confirm your accusations, but you don't even bother to let all the witnesses of heaven know that you thank the God who has mercy on your own imperfect sinful, selfish soul, for that brother that was intentionally purchased in the maiming torture execution of Christ. You doubt their calling, but they prayed over it long and hard, and what did you do? Folks, we need--no, we must--start to pray for others, and we must start in repentance by thanking God for electing all those brothers and sisters that we don't happen to like.
Aren't you glad that God happens to have grace enough to like you?
God likes them too, and when you start thanking Him for those same people He likes, then you will look beyond everything that offends you, and you will start to like those people like God does. Plainly, to do otherwise means you are an immature, carnal, self centered sinner who needs to repent. Further, you have become so blinded by the spirit of this age, that you are forgetting that those people need your prayers. In other words, your prayer for that brother or sister that you don't like, just may be the prayer that God uses to minister to that child of God. Think about that for a moment, because that is the kind of fruit that is manifested from intentional love. This is what it means to be functional, because when you thank God for the imperfect Christians around you, then you are functioning properly. The main point I am getting at is that we must begin nurturing what often becomes the uncommon practice of prayer. Again, it is a command, and it is to be unceasing. Later in chapter 6, Paul gives the command. Paul says to clearly be,
"praying always with all prayer and supplication [which is petitioning and requesting] in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints." Ephesians 6:18
It's all through the Bible as an elementary teaching. Paul says to his spiritual child, Timothy,
"... I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men," 1 Timothy 2:11
This is others oriented prayer. It is intentional. It is to be our unceasingly common function. The final example I will give is from Paul to the Colossians, where he doesn't mince words. He says,
"Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving; praying at the same time for us as well," Colossians 4:2
So far, in examining Paul's declaration of prayer, we have seen that the Biblical revelation of prayer is that prayers should be many, and they should be unceasing. We have also seen that the common application of prayer is usually toward us and our needs. But then we have also seen what often becomes the uncommon application of prayer; (it is the attribute of the functional family), and that is that we should not cease to give thanks for God's election of others, and we should not cease to make mention of others in our prayers in supplications and intercessions.
/4/
This leads us to the fourth and final thing we need to learn this morning, and that is the purposed aspect of prayer, where we need to be giving thanks, praying, supplicating, and interceding as a matter of intentional application through intentional discipline. Paul says in later chapters,
"always [be] giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" Ephesians 5:20 to pray always with petitioning and requesting, in the Spirit, and to be watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all your brothers and sisters in Christ, Ephesians 6:18
In Colossians, "Devote yourselves to prayer, ..." and Jesus in the gospels saying "... pray then in this way," and on, and on, and on. It is God's will in Christ Jesus, but what the Lord is saying is that it is only going to happen by intentionally making it happen. What God is telling us to do is pray. You can hear all the sermons in the world on prayer, but the bottom line is that it doesn't matter unless you start doing it.
Let me give you an example of what I mean by sharing my own intentional practice of prayer. Years ago, I was not satisfied with my seemingly random, drive by practice of focused prayer. I knew that God's revealed preceptive will for me through the revelation of scripture is that I be about praying, and praying a lot. I knew it had to be intentional. So, here is what I started doing. I started listening for things to pray for when I talked to people or kept abreast of world events. Based upon my sphere of life, I would make things into prayer priorities. I personally pray every morning when I first wake up. As I go throughout the day, I will keep my eyes open, and I will keep my ears open, and I will pray for people about situations like sickness, or job problems, or marital problems. Sometimes I will pray for world leaders, but I pray because I know that no matter what it is, I am doing God's will in obedience to the privilege and command to pray. Before our evening meal, in our home, our family prays. Directly after the evening meal, I have a Bible devotion with the kids, and then I ask each of my sons to pray aloud, by giving thanks to God, and by interceding and supplicating for others. When I am putting my sons to bed at night, I pray with each one individually. When I am in bed myself, and about to go to sleep, I pray about things that have been laid on my heart. The next day, I start the whole process over again. All I am doing is practicing my prayer relationship with the Lord in a focused and intentional manner. Anyone can do this. You can do this. Some people keep prayer journals. They will write down prayer requests, and needs, and then pray for each one on the list. Some of these kinds of prayer journals will have a place where the person praying will later write what the outcome of a particular situation ended up being. This way they can know how the prayer was answered, and how to continue praying if necessary. Sometimes I make notes on my notepad when I get a prayer request. Often, someone will say to me that they need prayer for something. Sometimes I will make note of it, but often, I like to say, "Let's pray about it right now." Why do I do that? There are three reasons: First, is because I know that there are times that I intend on praying about something later on, but before I can make a note of it (or somehow I get distracted directly after the person asks me to pray, and so) I forget. So, praying right then and there takes care of the potential problem of absent mindedness. Secondly, I do not want the phrase "yes I will pray for you," to become some kind of trite empty cliche'. I want it to be real to the person I am talking to in the sense that we can do it right then and there, and it should be a matter of normal activity to pray with someone at anytime. This leads to the third reason why I have intentionally prayed with someone immediately after they have shared a prayer request with me. Many people are uncomfortable praying at the spur of the moment, in public, or praying aside from a pious, religious type setting. I know this, and being a pastor I seek to teach people by example. So, often I will pray with someone to help disciple them in the normalcy of immediate prayer. It is easy. It is decisive. It is authentic communication with the creator of the universe, and we can do it right now.
I encourage you to be about the continuous, all the time, daily, moment to moment practice of prayer. Be thinking about what God is saying to you through His word concerning the clear, unarguable revelation of prayer. Be thinking that there is more than the common application of prayer, which is to always be praying for yourself, and your needs. Be trying to practice as a matter of habit, what often becomes the uncommon application of prayer, by not ceasing to give thanks for God's choice of other Christians; telling God you appreciate them, even though you may not like them, and not ceasing to make mention of others in prayer, supplication and requests for them. This is how we get to being about the intentional application of prayer through intentional discipline. The bottom line is that you need to pray, pray, pray. Don't just talk about it. Don't just say you will do it, but do it by planning to do it right now as your moment to moment practice of your privilege.
