Last week was half-term break. Normally there are no Youth work meetings at all because this is a time for everyone to go on holidays and for us volunteers to visit each other all over the country. Due to the National Lockdown everyone was at home so we decided to still offer some small events. On Sunday, we met online for a “Worship-Night”. We just listened to some worship-songs, talked about why we worship and prayed. We also created a playlist for everyone to add their favourite worship-songs. On Wednesday, we had a parallel “Girls-Night” and “Lad’s-Night” where we came together to play games, chat and drink hot-chocolate. In my free time I used the good weather to go for a lot of walks (and one bike-ride). We also had a Valentine's lunch in my host family for which I had made a cake. Yesterday, the service for the young people took place again and it was my go to give the talk in Encounter. We are talking about praying at the moment and my topic was “praying for other Christians”. I originally made a video out of it, which is too large to share on this blog. But I still included the text down below.
Today, the Prime Minister will reveal a roadmap out of lockdown so we'll see what changes will happen.
Encounter-Talk; 21th February 2021 (Ephesians 3:14-21)
Today’s topic is “praying for other Christians”. And this is basically what Paul does in the Bible passage that has been read to us: he prays for the people of the Ephesians Church. I do struggle with this topic sometimes and I have questions. For some of them I want to find an answer in today’s talk.
First of all: Why does Paul pray for others? Why is that important? Jesus commands that we pray, not only for our family, friends, and fellow believers, but even for our enemies. Prayer is a powerful way in which we get to know our Saviour, and it also brings believers together. We believe that prayer makes a difference. Effective prayer for others will bring us closer to God, because effective prayer is based on a knowledge of His will. It will also bring us closer to others and gets our focus off of ourselves and onto the needs around us. Praying for others indicates love for others. If we do not love, we do not know God. By praying for one another we build a community and strengthen our sense of belonging. In this way our church grows. Paul too asks the people in his letter to work for the unity by first reminding them of what God has called them to do and then showing them what this commitment to unity looks like in concrete terms. We as a church are 'one body', 'one spirit' and 'one hope', believing in 'one Lord', 'one faith' and one 'God and Father' who is 'above all', 'through all' and 'in all'.
How should we pray? This is a questions I’ve been asking myself a lot. Is there one right way to pray? To find an answer I took a look into the Bible to see how the people did it. And I saw that they all had different methods. Praying is a personal and unique thing for each one of us. Chatting to God is not just any conversation, it’s our audience with the living God. And it’s not about rules or big words. God is looking through your words straight into your heart. In the first passage Paul writes about kneeling down before God. So does the physical position matters? I don’t think it does. You might get so overwhelmed by God’s love/the good news/your faith that you fall down on your knees. But in the end it is the position of your heart that matters. Open your heart for the Holy Spirit so He might work through you.
What should we pray for? It is totally right to pray for health and for good things to happen in the life of others. But when people in the Bible pray for others, e.g. Paul or Jesus, they pray for different things. So for fellow believers, we pray for spiritual blessings such as their spiritual growth, for their work in ministry or basically for God’s will to be done in their lives.
Praying for others indicates love for others. If we do not love, we do not know God. In the Bible passage that has been read to us, Paul prays for the people in the Ephesian Church to be rooted and established in love. And not just any love. He prays that their foundation of life would be the Love of Christ and that they might deepen their roots by spiritually grow. And this love is wider and longer and higher and deeper than we can imagine. It’s infinite, it’s limitless. As we continue reading the passage it says that God is able to do immeasurable more than all we can ask or imagine. Due to the fact that this was a new vocabulary for me, I looked up some synonyms: God is bottomless, endless, horizon less, indefinite, infinite, limitless, measureless, unbounded, unlimited. We believe in a limitless God! And I think we forget that sometimes. I definitely have been limiting God’s power by not asking for specific things in prayer because I thought they are impossible to happen. But didn’t Jesus say: “What is impossible with man is possible with God”?
So what are we goanna do about that? In your prayers, ask yourself: “What would you like to see God do in your life and in the life of others?” and ask God to do the unimaginable things through you and for others. When you pray for other Christians pray for them to get to know God and His love for us. Pray that they might grow spiritually so they’ll be able to share God’s love and the good news with others. Pray that they will experience the limitless love of God to live in His Glory.
To this limitless loving God to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.