Thursday: Timeless Compassion Replicated
The sincerest offering of praise is imitation. Christ’s earliest disciples imitated their Master’s prayer life. Naturally they prayed for personal safety, for their daily necessities, and for individual spiritual guidance. Nevertheless, intercessory prayer became an important component of their discipleship.
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Read Acts 1:13-14; 1 Timothy 2:1-4; James 5:13-16; 1 John 5:16; Jude 20-22; 1 Peter 4:7. What role did prayer assume in the early church? What were some of the specific situations for which they prayed? What can we learn from these examples?
Constant prayer anchored the early church. Whenever Paul departed for missionary purposes, he was commissioned through prayer (Acts 13:3, Acts 14:23). Even their farewells were clothed in prayer (Acts 20:36, Acts 21:5). Frequently their prayers assumed the form of intercession. They prayed for government leaders, fellow believers, and, generally speaking, everyone! Paul interceded for the father of Publius, the chief official who suffered from dysentery. Even when he lay dying Stephen interceded for his murderers. The centrality of prayer among the earliest believers can hardly be overstated. Scripture says that prayer pleases God because He desires salvation for everyone and seeks the advancement of truth. Through prayer-combined with apostolic teaching, fervent preaching, miraculous wonders, and loving fellowship-the early church rapidly multiplied. Despite vigorous persecution, Christianity enveloped the empire. Thousands upon thousands accepted the gospel. Transformed lives burned as living lights from Caesar’s palace to points unknown.
How much time do you spend in intercessory prayer? Think through your answer. Better yet, perhaps the question should be, How much more time should you spend in intercessory prayer?
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[Edited for clarity.] We live among the people, we come into daily contact with them. We can not live nice if we are not DEITY stuck, closely bonded to heavenly love. We certainly need to pray without ceasing for everything and all. People can live without prayer but one day they will come to pray. That which we have in our hearts is a longing that nobody and nothing can quench: that is longing for our heavenly Father. PEOPLE pride makes them stay away from their Father, but His HEART calls every moment of their lives.
In the spirit of the #ten days of prayer, in prayer, we approach 'our father' at the divine audience chamber. As an act of faith,we claim the promises of God."For Everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." In calling God our father, we renounce all the selfishness that dots us and recognize all His kids as our brothers. What a privilege we have!
Amen
actually we ought 2emmulate the legacy of the apostles en visit our fellows both x-tians en non, en pray with them.
Intercessory prayer only makes sense if we interact with people. Sometimes we can be very isolationist, cutting contact with unchurched folk to a bare minimum. We are often uncomfortable with social contact with folk that do not share our lifestyle and world view. When our circle of friends includes unchurched folk then our opportunities for intercessory prayer increase.
I am not all that comfortable praying prayers for people who I do not know. I have seen requests for prayer on SSNET sometimes to pray for someone in need who we do not know. Of course I can say the words in a prayer, but it is not the same as praying for someone I know and interact with personally. Praying for a friend is deeply meaningful for me because praying for that person changes the way I interact with that person as well.