We believe in prayer.

Prayer for each other, for friends that don’t know God loves them yet, prayer for our church, our nation, our missionaries. Ah, yes, the missionaries.

It’s easy to lump them all together in a quick moment of “Lord, bless all the missionaries”, isn’t it?  And they might even say “we’ll take what we can get”. But actually prayer is a lot more than the quick, all-inclusive broad brush stroke of divine ‘blessing’ on whoever and wherever and whatever it is they actually need.

Prayer is a specific conversation between you and our Almighty God!  He teaches us to pray, He awaits our prayer, and He hears our prayer.  Sometimes our prayers may seem quick and sound much like the last time we prayed. I’m betting God is saying, “Come on kid, go ahead and put a little something on that. You’re talking to me and I’ve got all day, I’m all yours!”  Isn’t it amazing that God invites us to come to Him, to share our heart and our hurts and our desires?

A few weeks ago in our study of 2 Thessalonians we came across this little jewel of powerful prayer:

Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified, just as it did also with you.  2 Thessalonians 3:1

Powerful prayer is specific. Nothing wrong with asking God for “blessings” for our missionaries. But what Paul says is, “listen, the Word of God came to you so you now know Him and have a cool church. As we continue to do missionary work pray for us. But not just for safety or blessing or prosperity or good health. Pray that God’s Word would go forward, and go fast!”  That’s what I call the Urgency of Grace! When people hear the Word, they can respond in faith becoming followers of Jesus Christ, therefore they are also honoring, or glorifying God, just by being His!  How many people need Jesus?  All of them!

At Grace we’ve been blessed to see several of our missionaries over the past few months. Most recently the Rogers stopped in this past Sunday. You can hear Jaron’s message here.  As we send them off, let’s remember how to best pray for them and our other missionaries and ministries. That God’s Word would do what only God’s Word can do. Change lives for eternity.