“Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you“ (2 Thessalonians 3:1).
In this single verse Paul reminds of the importance of two of the chief things God has given us to do in the world: prayer and proclaiming God’s Word, both for the glory of God.
Pray! Pray for us as ministers of the gospel; but even your prayers for us are ultimately prayers for the advancement of the Word of God. Why pray? Because, Paul says, it is through your prayers that God has ordained that his Word will be effective and be glorified: “pray…that the word of the Lord may speed ahead.”
Pray because God hears prayer, God uses prayer, God empowers his Word through prayer!
What greater motivation could be given than this? Pray because prayer works! Pray because God has ordained prayer to empower his Word and those who speak his Word; pray because God is glorified, not only in the fact that you are praying to him, but by the results he effects through your prayer!
And, Paul specifies, pray for God’s Word to speed ahead and be honored. Pray that the Word of the Lord will run without obstacles, will race to the ends of the world like a flood, overwhelming everything in its path. What a wonderful prayer! What a mighty prayer!
Things will not be the same when this prayer comes true.
Implied in this prayer is that people will be converted in our midst by the truth of God’s Word; that the Word of the Lord will speed to the ends of the earth and reach yet-unreached peoples.
But also it is prayer that God’s Word will race into every corner of your life, and of my life. Have you read this book, the Bible? This is no small prayer!
This is a prayer for life-changing, life-transforming revelation to renovate my entire life from the inside out.
This is a prayer for God’s Word to search us out and overcome sins that we have hidden, or been unaware of, or grown comfortable with. It is a prayer that the Word of the Lord will flow like water from a fire hose into our hearts and overpower every obstacle, ever sin in our lives.
Pray! Pray that the Word of the Lord may race unhindered into every corner of every heart and every country, and be glorified among us.