What Is My Prayer for You?
2 Thessalonians 2:16– 17, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, Who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.”
It’s my practice not only to pray Scripture, but also to pray the prayers of Scripture. Just as vv16-17 are Paul’s payer for the Thessalonians, likewise it’s my prayer for you.
Why is it significant to pray Scripture? Because when you pray according to Scripture, you pray according to God’s will. And when you pray according to God’s will, you can be confident He hears you.
Consider 1 John 5:14– 15, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.”
We know God hears us because our prayer is according to God’s will. We know it’s according to God’s will because it’s based on God’s Word. Pray the Word of God and you pray the will of God. And when you pray the will of God you can be confident God hears your prayer.
Jesus promises in John 15:7, “If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
What is my prayer for you?
First, I pray for God to encourage you. In v17 the word “comfort” may also translated as “encourage.” I Pray for God to encourage you by inspiring your confidence in the chronology of Christ’s Return.
Consider the context of v2: “that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.”
If there’s one thing we need in these last and difficult days, it’s encouragement and confidence in the chronology of Christ’s Return. We haven’t missed anything yet. Our loved ones who have already died in Christ, they won’t miss anything either. They will rise first! Then we who are alive and remain will be “caught up together” with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air! And so we shall always be with the Lord!
You’ll recall 1 Thessalonians 4:18, “Therefore comfort [same word as in 2 Thess. 2:17 for encourage] one another [i.e., inspire confidence in one another] with these words.”
I pray for God to encourage you by inspiring confidence in the chronology of Christ’s Return!
We need encouragement, don’t we? Especially when the “apostasy” comes; the “restrainer” is removed, and the “antichrist” is revealed. While believers in Christ will not suffer the wrath or righteous judgment of God, we will suffer the persecution of the antichrist.
“But the one who endures to the end,” assures Jesus, “he will be saved” (Matthew 24:13).
For more information visit: jenkinsmemorialbaptistchurch.
com.
Also, if you do not attend church, we invite you to join us for Bible Study each Sunday morning at 9:30am and worship at 10:45am.
Jessie J. Charpentier is Pastor of Jenkins Memorial Baptist Church in St. Martinville.
