The great preacher gave us the words to get unstuck from our own prayer loop.
Pray like Paul? I tend to think of Paul as the great preacher, bringing the good news to the Gentiles from Galatia to Thessaloniki to Corinth to Rome. After all, his epistles make up a massive chunk of the New Testament, the earliest documents we have of the church.
But recently, as I’ve been reading Paul–and sometimes I can’t get enough of him–I keep stumbling over prayers in his writing. He frequently exhorts others to pray, exclaims how he prays for the people he’s writing to, and his very words form prayers. Here are a few:
Don’t be anxious about anything; rather bring up all of your requests to God in your payers and petitions, along with giving thanks. Then the peace of God that exceeds all understanding will keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus.
(Philippians 4:6-7)
May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of you Lord Jesus Christ.
(1 Thessalonians 5:23)
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
(Philemon 25)
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
(Romans 15:13)
If you cannot preach like Peter, you can pray like Paul.
By Rick Hamlin