Prayer for fellow Christians
Will he not with him
Also give us everything else? Romans 8:32
Read Ephesians 1:15—23
Tonight as I come to engage in my poor evening prayers I am given a lesson in prayer by the great apostle. I should look again over this passage. As I do this I should think: how did the apostle frame his prayer? ‘Dear God’? ‘Dear Lord’? Then straight to the request? No. He gave time to thanksgiving, and that thanks went beyond expressing gratitude for the Christians he was praying for. Rather, I am sure, he thanked God for who God is. He dwelt upon the character, the nature, the creative and saving work of God. I can be sure of that. I learn that from this reading. Next I learn something of what he prayed for his fellow Christians, that they, in their turn, would also dwell upon the character, the nature, the creating and the saving purposes of God. That’s what he prayed himself. And it’s what he prayed that they would do, too.
Prayer
God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, you love him in the fulness of the Spirit. You have shed his love abroad in my heart through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. I bring before you my fellow Christians. I pray for those I know personally, whose faces come to my mind. In your love you did not withhold your Son from us. You will also along with Jesus give to them all things. All things that work toward their fulness as Christians. The things that can be found in no other way than in communion with Christ. Things that eyes can’t see. They are called our inheritance. I pray that we will all know how rich this inheritance is.