“Devote yourselves to prayer…” (Col. 4:2-6)
The Apostle Paul understood that the advancement of the Kingdom of God required the church to be devoted to prayer. As our churches move into the fall season, which typically is full of restarting the cycle of various ministries and planning of new ones, we need to ask ourselves if our churches are more devoted to our programs that we are to prayer. The House of Prayer Cohort, made up of Prayer Point People from 13 of our churches, is asking itself that very question and intentionally seeking God’s direction about how we can be more devoted to prayer as churches. In this passage Paul urges the churches to be devoted to prayer and then shares some things they/we should be praying about:
• Watchfully praying about the schemes of the devil that God reveals to us in prayer so that we may stand against these attacks
• Praying about all things, including these attacks, with thanksgiving, so that we might be strong in faith and joyful in hope.
• Praying for open doors of opportunity so that we can share the gospel with those in our communities and beyond
• Praying that we will be able to communicate the gospel clearly so that people can understand it and believe it unto salvation
• Praying that we will recognize the opportunities that God brings our way and wisely take advantage of them so that will not lose the “fish that are nibbling on our line”
• Praying that we will graciously know how to answer those who have questions about the gospel so that hinderances to their faith will be removed
If we rally our churches to devote themselves to pray about just that list of items, I’m sure we would see many more “so-that’s” materializing that we are longing for. So, let’s become devoted to prayer so that our programs flow out of our prayers rather than our prayers flowing out of our programs. After all, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we now get to work with God rather than for God.