Quick note from something I learned in my quiet time this morning...
Have you struggled in prayer? I don't mean, 'have you struggled to pray' or 'have you struggled to remember to pray' or even 'have you struggled to make time to pray'. I mean have you struggled for someone or something in prayer?
This morning I was reading in Colossians and I came across this verse...
Colossians 2:1 (NLT)
I want you to know how much I have agonized for you and for the church at Laodicea, and for many other believers who have never met me personally.
I thought, 'Agonized how?'. When you continue to read and study, you learn that the chief way he agonized for them was in prayer.
Later in the same book, I read this verse...
Colossians 4:12 (NKJV)
12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
So in these verses, we see Paul agonizing for the Colossians in prayer, and we see Epaphras laboring fervently for them in prayer.
The questions then are... When was the last time I agonized or labored fervently for someone one in prayer? Are my prayers simply reciting a list of concerns? Are there new things I need to learn about prayer?
Pastor Noel
