When Love Prays

PAUL HAD JUST TOLD BELIEVERS in the Philippian church how he longed for them with the tender compassion of Jesus. But as we know, love doesn’t just sit there. It is moved to action, and very often that action is prayer. So Paul immediately told the Philippians how he had been praying for them— how the compassion of Jesus filling his heart had come out in his words, faith, and spiritual power. He prayed that their love would grow more and more (as his had), and that their knowledge and understanding would increase. He wanted them to see the King and the Kingdom as clearly as they could because that’s the most loving thing we can hope for in someone else’s life.

The fact that Paul’s prayers were motivated by love—specifically by “tender compassion” (verse 8)— is significant. We should never pray just for the sake of praying or even for the sake of making things right, accomplishing godly goals and purposes, or getting our needs met. Our prayers are to flow from a fountain of love because that is the foundation and fundamental truth of who God is (1 John 4:9, 16). Our prayers have to connect with God at this point; otherwise, they are pointless. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, all of our activity is fruitless apart from love.

The good news is that prayer is especially fruitful when motivated by love—far more so than if we pray because we want to see miracles, experience God’s power, satisfy the needs and longings in our hearts, or have our spiritual status validated. None of those desires are necessarily wrong; they just aren’t the highest priority. Instead, when we are driven to pray for ourselves and the people around us because our hearts overflow with love for God and others— because our compassion moves us, as it so often moved Jesus - we are moving in sync with God’s Spirit. Our prayers carry his DNA within them. His love—and ours— becomes the reason, the purpose, and the outcome of the things we pray.

This week's free devotional is  from One Year Praying in Faith by Chris Tiegreen, available at OMF Lit Bookshops and shop.omflit.com for P365. 

The faith journey can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be.

Abraham, Joseph, David, Paul, and even Jesus himself―all heroes of the faith who experienced both the soaring grace of answered prayers and crushing sorrow when God seemed unwilling to respond or too far away to hear. And yet, even in the darkest times, God was working, writing an unseen story of redemption that would save the world.

When we pray, how do we see beyond the immediate and into the eternal? How do we know when to keep praying and when to give up; when to consider something a promise from God and when to recognize that it was from our own imagination? Why does silence from God rarely mean no and almost always mean come closer?

The One Year Praying in Faith Devotional answers these questions and many more, taking you through a 365-day journey that will help you experience a prayerful relationship with God like never before.