[Power of the Word] For All the Saints
Daniel Brady
“…praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,“
--Ephesians 6:18 (ESV)
In Ephesians 6:18, Paul tells us to pray in the Spirit at all times and to watch out for anything that would keep us from praying in the Spirit. I have written about what it means to pray in the Spirit, and I have written about some of the things that can keep you from accomplishing this task.
Now, we move on to the last command found in this verse. Paul tells us to pray for all the saints. This may seem pretty obvious, but Christians are to be praying for each other. The fact that Paul discusses the armor of God in Ephesians 6 means that we are soldiers in His army. And this is not an army of one. We are fellow soldiers, and we are to fight together, to stand united in the face of the enemy.
In the church I grew up in, weekly prayer meetings were held on Wednesday evenings. As a youngster, I found these to be dull and boring. However, as I grew older, I came to see the value of gathering with other saints and lifting our petitions to the Lord together in prayer. The experience of prayer certainly brings us closer to God. But there is also an increased intimacy among believers when we can come together, here what is happening in each other’s lives, and join together as we make one individual’s request the common request of all. In addition, when prayer is answered, it is not just the one individual who gets to rejoice in the goodness of God, but all who joined that individual in prayer can rejoice, as well.
But now, let’s take this a step further. For Paul does not exhort us to pray only for the members of our local congregation. He tells us to pray for all the saints. We are to pray for all Christians everywhere. We are to pray for those belonging to other denominations. We are to pray for Christians throughout our city, throughout our state, throughout the nation, and around the world.
As a member of the Southern Baptist denomination, I have seen this put into practice on many occasions. The Southern Baptist denomination is a very missions-oriented denomination, sponsoring and sending missionaries throughout the world. And at various times throughout the year, there is a denominational focus on missions, wherein special offerings are taken up to support missionaries.
These times of focus on missions also involve a week of prayer for missions. This is aided by a prayer guide. For each day of the week, there is a short article about some specific missionary out in the field, telling you about the work that missionary is doing. In addition, that missionary’s specific prayer requests are mentioned, and you are asked to pray for those needs. This must be of great encouragement to those missionaries—to know that on at least one particular day, there are many in America who are praying to God on their behalf.
But now, even this is not enough. Again, Paul does not tell us to pray only for those closest to us, nor even only for missionaries that our denomination supports or that we may hear of. We are commanded to pray for all the saints.
But my goodness, how many Christians are there throughout the world. There are millions. There is no way to know about or hear of every single one. There is no way of knowing all of their prayer requests. This is nearly impossible even within the local congregation, unless it is very small. And even if you could know them all, there is not time to pray specifically for each request.
So how are we to pray for all the saints, without saying some general prayer that sounds vague and empty? Pray the Scriptures over them. Open your Bible, and read it as a prayer back to God on behalf of all His children. Pray that they may obey the commands given. Pray for them to receive the blessings that are promised. Pray for their sanctification.
If this seems a foreign concept to you, and you need a good starting place, look at Paul’s epistles. You know, somewhere in every one of his letters, Paul tells his readers that he is praying for them. And he tells them what his prayer for them is. In some of the letters, he offers up more than one prayer. And these prayers can be applied to each of our lives. They are not specific only to those people to whom Paul wrote in the First Century. Therefore, I would suggest that you look through the epistles, find these prayers, and as you read them back to God, say, “Lord, I ask that You would do these things in the lives of all Your people throughout the earth, that Your Name may be exalted and Your will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven.”
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