[1 Thessalonians 5:25]
· Paul loved the believers in the Church at Thessalonica. He wrote two letters to them and was so keen to see them develop in the Christian faith, as well as wanting to correct some of their misunderstandings on certain lifestyle issues. Paul cared! Greatly! It wasn't just one-way traffic either. Paul was open and honest with his friends about what he had gone through in order to share the Good News of Jesus, and he wasn’t afraid to ask for prayer. If you had received a request like the verse above, would you have bothered to pray for Paul?
· We love our mates don’t we? Our best mates mean the world to us. We’d do anything to help them out, wouldn’t we? If they were in trouble, we’d try to get them the help they needed, right? Yet, how many of us actually pray for our friends on a regular basis? Does prayer feature at all in your friendships?
· Prayer is so important, not only for our spiritual development but also for those we pray for. I have a group of people I pray for every night. I work through their names, offer them up to God and ask Him to help, protect, bless and provide for them. This helps me grow in my prayer life by taking the attention off me and onto those I love.
· Yet there’s also another level of prayer for our friends; that of intercession. You see, aside from my regular routine of praying for those I love, every now and then, [like many of you may have experienced], a mate of mine will go through a really tough time. They pour out their fears to you and you sit there thinking “I don’t have a solution to this. I don’t know anyone who can help.” It’s then that you have a choice: do nothing or intercede for your friend.
· I once heard a helpful illustration about what intercession actually is. The intercessor was described as being like a bean cane in a vegetable patch, tied to a weak, feeble tomato plant, [the friend who needs help] that keeps getting battered by the wind. Staking ourselves - like a bean cane - to our friends helps us cry out to God on their behalf, when they don’t have the strength to ask for help themselves. Make a decision today to choose to be an intercessor!
