Shepastor: “Learning from the Prayer of Epaphras…”

Epaphras sends greetings to you. He comes from your city. And he is a servant of Jesus Christ. Epaphras always prays hard for you. He prays that you will be mature Christians. He prays that you will be confident. He prays that you will do all that God wants you to do. Colossians 4:12, The Bible in Basic English

Epaphras was a Christian brother who visited Paul in prison and told Paul about the young church that was at Colossae. The Christians who lived there had begun to listen to false teachers. Paul was worried that the Christians would turn away from the true *gospel. Therefore, Paul wrote to the Christians at Colossae to remind them about Jesus Christ and about his true message emphasising that Christ is superior.

In this passage, Paul is reminding the Christians at Colosse that they have an advocate in the spirit, their brother Epaphras, as Paul puts it is always, “wrestling in prayer” for them.

The Bible in Basic English says verse 12 like this,
“Epaphras sends greetings to you. He comes from your city. And he is a servant of Jesus Christ. Epaphras always prays hard for you. He prays that you will be mature Christians. He prays that you will be confident. He prays that you will do all that God wants you to do.”

Prayer is more than just a ritualistic exercise. Prayer is greater than desperate utterance mumbled at the time of crisis. Prayer ought to be a way of life. Some have specific times and places that they pray. Some make a practice of praying at bedtime or saying, “grace” before meals. But prayer is so much more than “the regular.”

What is prayer? Prayer is a conversation with God. Prayer is a time to share our inner most thoughts and feelings with the Lord. Prayer is a battle ground. I like the translation that says Epaphras was always, “wrestling” in prayer for the Christians at Colosse. That means that Epaphras understood that something critical, something imperative, something of vital nature was at stake. He understood that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. Epaphras’ example of wrestling in prayer teaches us that we need to “kick it up a notch” so to speak. He prayed some specific, strategic prayers for his people and his community.

He prayed for them to be mature Christians.Those who are immature in the faith lack self control… can’t control their anger, offended easily, giving up easily, not able to control their tongue, knows very little scripture, falling in and out of sinful behaviours – immature Christians. But after a while, after studying God’s Word, after hanging around other more mature Christians, after prayer and fasting – there ought to be some maturity about you – you ought to be able to digest the “meat” of God’s word.

Epaphras was wrestling against the spirit of immaturity among his people and in the community. He prayed that they would grow up in the Lord. The scripture says, “when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things…” God calls us to be mature Christians – having a praying spirit, a discerning spirit, a peaceful spirit, a loving spirit, a giving spirit a forgiving spirit.

Ephaphras also prayed that they would be confident. He wrestled in prayer that his brothers and sisters at the church of Colosse would be confident, not in themselves but in who God made them to be. He prayed that they would be confident in the complete work of Jesus Christ – “being confident of this very thing, that He who hath begun a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” When you don’t know your identity in Christ, when you don’t realize what God has done for you, you will live beneath your privilege and will walk in ways that are not reflective of who you really are.

Sometimes we lack confidence because someone has told us negative and degrading things about ourselves. Sometimes we lack confidence because we always felt that others were better than we are. Sometimes we lack confidence because we never had the support or the accolades or the positive encouragement that every child needs to realize their potential. So we live beneath our potential, beneath our God given talents and gifts, beneath our rightful place. We wrestle to really discover who God made us to be.

But through the wrestling of prayer, we can emerge victorious and reach the heights intended for us to reach. We sometimes have to wrestle to break old habits, wrestle to push past old pain, wrestle, to gain a new perspective, wrestle, to rise above negativity and shame, wrestle to be all that God has intended us to be in this world. We also need brothers and sisters who like Epaphras, will wrestle with us to help us to rise higher.

Finally, Epaphras prayed that the Christians at Colossea would do all that God wants them to do. We have to wrestle in prayer for others that they would realize what God is calling for them to do, created them to do, empowered them to do and then that they would get up and do it!

We must wrestle in prayer that we will do the will of God. We must wrestle against doubt, wrestle against fear, wrestle against gloom and doom, wrestle against nay sayers, wrestle against principalities and powers, not in our own strength but in the strength of the Lord. The wrestling is in a determination to be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as we know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Continue fervent in prayer – remember how Jacob wrestled all night long and said I will not let go until you bless me – may we wrestle in prayer like Epaphras…praying for other Christians, praying for our communities, praying for one another that we will be mature Christians, that we will be confident through Christ and that we will learn God’s will for our lives and do it!

Post a comment or send me an email at Shepastor1@hotmail.com

Until next Wednesday,
In Faith, Hope and Perseverance,
Pastor Chris
www.shepastorchris.org