Learning and Praying
Learning and Praying
A prayer group partnering with people who pray and teaching those who want to
Welcome to Epaphras Prays hosted by the Voice of Epaphras. Always Laboring in Prayers that you stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
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The Church today is mostly powerless because it is mostly prayerless. Our prayers are infrequent and limited to a few minutes before a meeting or meals. We know we should pray, but we spend more time and energy in many other areas.
The Church needs to pray!
You want to pray for others because Jesus taught us that we should, you see a lack of intercessory prayer, and can sense the Church is more focused on church growth and church business. You also understand that we need to learn to pray.
But you are not sure how or where to begin.
The Scriptures tell us to pray without ceasing; to pray on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests and we see many examples of this. Jesus tells His disciples to watch and pray; this kind only comes out by prayer and fasting; to ask, seek and knock. He tells them to abide in Him and let His Word abide in them and then ask what they will and it will be done for them.
Jesus modeled praying in front of His followers, told them to pray, taught them how, and promised to answer those prayers. The disciples came to Jesus and asked Him “Lord, teach us to pray.”
We are looking for people who ask that same question in our day.
In the late 1990’s I was in a small church and the Pastor had an intercession program. He made a list by Zip Code of where each member lived and wanted a person who lived that area to pray each week for the people on that list. My area needed a person to pray and I volunteered. The pastor gave me a list of a dozen folks and told me to get alone with the Lord and pray an hour a week. An hour. A week.
That was it really, no further instructions, just pray for the people on this list. Taking this seriously, I sat down the next day and began my hour of prayer. And boy did I pray, and I prayed, as hard as I could for these people. I didn’t know many of them other than by face or name, so without knowing their needs or requests, I prayed earnestly anyway.
And when I’d finished, I looked at the clock and wondered…what am I going to do for the next 55 minutes! This was not a good start.
So began my prayer journey of education in intercession – and I had a lot to learn. I found some books on prayer, learned the FACTS of prayer, studied the Scriptures about prayer, and started to pray with other people.
I went to more prayer meetings and listened while they sought the Lord on behalf of others. Many of these folks talked with God like they knew He would hear them; they asked promises from the Biblical texts; and prayed like they believed the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous avails much.
After some time the pastors I prayed with began to ask me to help lead the group, then I got involved with the city-wide prayer team and later with the leaders of the National Day of Prayer event in May each year, which I began to host.
Today I am partnered with others who pray and contribute to our newsletters. We are looking to join with more who pray as intercessors to be in our prayer group, and we want to help others learn to pray as Jesus taught. The Church in America needs prayer, desperately – and is in need of pray-ers, that is people who actually pray!
Do you pray, or want to? Please consider joining us and we can pray and learn to – together, wherever we are.
We pray every day and can share some of these with you. We have a number of Biblical and historic prayer and intercession lessons to share so we can grow from 5 minutes to an hour, to 3 times a day like Daniel, to night and day, to without ceasing.
Curious? Here is how we can connect and get started:
You can sign up with your best email address and we will send you a FREE 2-page pdf you can download and use to get started right away.
It includes:
3 Prayer Helps
Hindrances To Prayer
6 A’s To Pray
And you may be wondering who or what is Epaphras? We will explain that in the email.
In the meantime, tell your friends who pray or want to.
Subjects and Key Words: Prayer, pray, intercession, Jesus, church, God, people, Bible