Every Christian knows they should pray for others (1 Tim. 2:1). Yet every Christian also knows how terribly trite it feels to ask God over and over again to help out your fellow church members with their health, safety, or money problems. So how do we pray without just repeating ourselves?
Fortunately, God answers this for us. As Christians, we should pray continuously (1 Thess. 5:17), taking each other’s anxiety to our caring God (1 Pet. 5:7). We should also pray with thanksgiving, bringing one another’s requests to God (Phil. 4:6). The Lord also invites us to pray expectantly for wisdom (James 1:5). We shouldn’t grow weary of faithfully praying these prayers. But we can aim for even more precision in our prayers for other church members.
WHAT NOT TO INCLUDE
But before I get to specifics on what to pray for, let me be specific about how we don’t have to pray. Sometimes people make up standards for prayer that simply aren’t biblical. The Bible makes it clear that unnecessarily public, lengthy, wordy, and repetitive prayer is not necessarily godly prayer (Matt. 6:6–7). So as we pray for fellow members, don’t feel unnecessary guilt that your prayers aren’t long.
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