Tag: Help in Prayer

When We Need Help

Hebrews 4.16: “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence,so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

My friends, let me ask you to pray for me and pray for one another.  Will you beseech the Lord to help us confidently approach the throne of grace whenever we need help?  I am confident that in so doing, the Sovereign Lord will grant us mercy and grace that will abundantly supply our every need.

Sadly, I believe that in our weakness, we do not approach the throne of our Lord’s grace often.  It is strange – is it not?  It ought to be a place that we delight to go.  It ought to be first upon our desires.  Truly we need the Lord’s gracious help.

Please pray with me for this.

(This post is part of the Biblical Prayer Requests series.  Click here for an introduction to the series.)

Biblical Prayer Requests

This is an introduction to a new series of posts that I hope to update from time to time.  The purpose of these posts is to search the Scriptures to find biblical subjects that ought to be the object of the prayers of the saints.  My hope in these posts is to encourage each of us to be bold when we share our needs with one another in prayer and to be encouraged to honestly ask one another to pray for these pressing needs.

Often, when churches gather in prayer meetings or take requests from one another for prayers, we focus on needs of health, needs of finance, and needs of relationships.  These are certainly things that we ought to pray for in a Scriptural manner.  Our Lord told his disciples to ask for daily provision of physical things, such as our daily food. But it is very easy to focus mainly (or only) on requests for prayer from others for such things.

Our Lord also taught “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6.33).  We are encouraged by Jesus to seek his kingdom and his righteousness, and the physical needs are rather secondary in importance compared to this.

Now, please do not misunderstand me.  I am not saying that it is wrong, or even less spiritual, to request prayer for a loved one’s health or physical well-being.  We ought to share one anothers’ burdens for these things.

I just want to give encouragement to also be focused on expressing in prayer our desires to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.  I think that in order to do so, we must be confronted with the fact that we need to change what we pray for, what we ask others to pray for, and the priority of praying for the spiritual needs of the Body of Christ.

I think one of the things to overcome is the simple tradition of the typical prayer request process.  It is very easy to go to almost any Church or prayer meeting and ask others to prayer for your relative who is sick.  It is even comfortable for many to ask others to prayer for a person’s salvation.  However, I have found that we do not have a good track record of speaking up during a time of prayer requests and expressing that you desire for all to pray for some of the manifold spiritual needs of yourself and the members of the Body of Christ.

A more serious issue may also be underlying our prayer requests.  Perhaps we are more concerned with physical needs than we are with our spiritual health.  Perhaps we are seeking first the things of this life and just hoping the things of the kingdom of God and His righteousness will just be added as we go our merry way.

Regardless of what is the root cause of the focus of our personal and corporate prayers, my hope is that through this series of posts, we will overcome the sin that easily entangles us and thirst for the Kingdom of God and boldly seek to pray in private, and with the saints for the things which bring honor and glory and dominion to the risen Lord Jesus. My hope is that we will learn and be convinced that we ought to search the Scriptures and pray together that God will help us seek the glory of God.

May God bless us with godly longings.  My His Spirit enable us and guide us to pray as we ought.

Click here to find posts in this series.