Title: 4 Areas to Focus on in Prayer
Author: Palitha Jayasooriya
Text: Colossians 4:2
"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful" (Colossians 4:2)
Introduction:
I was once assigned to oversee a ministry in a difficult part of our city. Since the area was quite unfamiliar to me, I took on the assignment with much trepidation. As we began to conduct our services, however, the Lord began to bless our work beyond what I had envisaged. I was quite baffled by the results we were seeing until the moment when I walked into the upstairs section of our church building one morning. There, in one corner of the sanctuary, I saw a group of ladies crying out to the Lord for His blessing upon our ministry. They joyfully told me that this was something they had been burdened to do on a daily basis.
It then hit me that this was one of the key reasons why we were experiencing the Lord's grace upon our work.
Prayer is vitally important for the work of God, and in this sermon, I would like to share four areas of prayer that we could focus on with regards to the work of the Lord and His people. They are:
1) Pray for more workers to enter the harvest field
This was a prayer request given to the disciples by none other than Jesus Himself. As He looked at the crowds around Him, Jesus had compassion on them, because He saw them as harassed and helpless sheep, without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). Jesus therefore said, "The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send more workers into His fields" (Matthew 9:37-38 NLT).
This is something we all need to earnestly pray for, more so, since reports indicate that many pastors and preachers are quitting the ministry through discouragement, due to the many challenges they face. Our prayers could certainly help to reverse that worrying trend.
2) Pray for open doors for the Gospel
In the Book of Colossians, Paul tells the believers, ...
Author: Palitha Jayasooriya
Text: Colossians 4:2
"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful" (Colossians 4:2)
Introduction:
I was once assigned to oversee a ministry in a difficult part of our city. Since the area was quite unfamiliar to me, I took on the assignment with much trepidation. As we began to conduct our services, however, the Lord began to bless our work beyond what I had envisaged. I was quite baffled by the results we were seeing until the moment when I walked into the upstairs section of our church building one morning. There, in one corner of the sanctuary, I saw a group of ladies crying out to the Lord for His blessing upon our ministry. They joyfully told me that this was something they had been burdened to do on a daily basis.
It then hit me that this was one of the key reasons why we were experiencing the Lord's grace upon our work.
Prayer is vitally important for the work of God, and in this sermon, I would like to share four areas of prayer that we could focus on with regards to the work of the Lord and His people. They are:
1) Pray for more workers to enter the harvest field
This was a prayer request given to the disciples by none other than Jesus Himself. As He looked at the crowds around Him, Jesus had compassion on them, because He saw them as harassed and helpless sheep, without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). Jesus therefore said, "The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send more workers into His fields" (Matthew 9:37-38 NLT).
This is something we all need to earnestly pray for, more so, since reports indicate that many pastors and preachers are quitting the ministry through discouragement, due to the many challenges they face. Our prayers could certainly help to reverse that worrying trend.
2) Pray for open doors for the Gospel
In the Book of Colossians, Paul tells the believers, ...
There are 8814 characters in the full content. This excerpt only shows a 2000 character sample of the full content.
Price: $5.99 or 1 credit
