Devotional: Praying for Others

[electedbyHim]

September 29

Praying for Others​

"With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints" (Eph. 6:18).​

God wants you to look beyond your own problems and pray for the needs of others.


The great preacher D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, "Before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, in Barcelona, Madrid and other places, there were psychological clinics with large numbers of neurotics undergoing drug treatments and others attending regularly for psychoanalysis and such like. They had their personal problems, their worries, their anxieties, their temptations, having to go back week after week, month after month, to the clinics in order to be kept going.

"Then came the Civil War; and one of the first and most striking effects of that War was that it virtually emptied the psychological and psychiatric clinics. These neurotic people were suddenly cured by a greater anxiety, the anxiety about their whole position, whether their homes would still be there, whether their husbands would still be alive, whether their children would be killed.

"Their greater anxieties got rid of the lesser ones. In having to give attention to the bigger problem they forgot their own personal and somewhat petty problems" (The Christian Soldier: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10 to 20 [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978], p. 357).

That's a negative illustration of a positive principle: your own problems pale as you pray in the Spirit on behalf of others. Praying "in the Spirit" (Eph. 6:18) is praying in concert with the Holy Spirit—in harmony with His Person and will. It's synonymous with praying according to God's will (1 John 5:14).

As the Holy Spirit intercedes for you (Rom. 8:26-27), you are to intercede for others. That's not always easy in our contemporary religious environment where self- centeredness is praised rather than shunned, and more and more professing Christians are embracing the health, wealth, and prosperity heresy. But God's mandate is for us to love one another, pray for one another, and look out for one another's interests (Phil. 2:3-4). Let that mandate govern all your relationships.

Suggestions for Prayer

• Make a list of people you want to intercede for.
• Spend time praying for each person, asking God to show you specific ways to minister to his or her needs.

For Further Study

Read Philippians 2:1-11.

• What should be your attitude toward other believers?
• How did Christ set an example of proper attitudes?

From Drawing Near by John MacArthur

 

[hawkman]

Suggestions for Prayer

• Make a list of people you want to intercede for.
• Spend time praying for each person, asking God to show you specific ways to minister to his or her needs.

I had a dream one night and I was shown a man I had never seen sitting up in bed and next to him was someone completely covered up and I could not see their face .
I was sent there to offer them comfort , mainly I was there for the one covered up because the man I saw he was at peace , I could tell by his expression .
I offered comfort through prayer to the unseen person and the dream was over .

The next day here on the forum one of our members has a new avatar with his photo in it . It is the unknown man from my dream ! I only saw his face in profile view in the dream but it was very detailed , there was no doubt . I talk with him and ask how things are at home . He tells me his wife has lost a very close relative and it has hit her very hard . I tell him some about the dream and how I was sent to comfort them in some way .