One of the defining turning points in my mind when I think of the history of the twelve tribes of Israel was a point of decision. God had, with a mighty hand, led them out of slavery in Egypt, through the mighty red sea, and now into the desert where he would prepare them for their promised land. The whole nation was encamped near a mountain and God had told them to draw near so he could talk to them from the mountain. He desperately desired fellowship and open communication with His people.

The people purified themselves and drew near to the mountain, which was now enveloped in loud thunder, flashes of lightning, great quaking, and a roaring fire: a display of the awesome glory of God. The people were afraid – and their fearful desire for self-preservation was greater than their desire for fellowship with their creator – so they told Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” (Ex. 19:12 – 20:21) So the people withdrew from the bottom of the mountain to stand afar off and watch.

I can only imagine God’s disappointment when he saw the people back away. He had done so much for them and all He expected in return was an open line of communication. He did not want to start a religion, He wanted to start a relationship with His people. He wanted to talk to each of them, and only one was willing to do it face to face. Only one was hungry enough to know God that they were willing to risk hair and hide to find do it. Only one.

The unfortunate dilemma in many church systems today is very similar. Churches have been set up using Old Testament hierarchies when the Old Testament has passed away. The church in the first century was so wonderfully free from religion that there were no heads or tails among the people. No pulpits and pews in their meeting rooms. No clergy and laity. Rather all were kings and priests to God, and for the most part they acted like it. They all ministered in different ways, all were used in differing gifts of the Spirit, all took part in building up the whole body. As a result, all layed hands on the sick, all visited the infirmed or imprisoned, all baptized new believers, and all were charged with being prayer warriors and soul winners.

The average church group today looks very different. They have a Moses, and they have told him, “You go for us.” Without realizing it, they have rejected God as their King and heaped to themselves a mediator. Someone who will talk to God on their behalf and deliver His messages for them. A leader they can call their own and who will represent them to the world and to God. This setup hinders the forward movement of the body of Christ in at least two key ways. The leader becomes overworked and born down with way too much responsibility, and the saints under their ministry become fat and lazy and carnal – I say this with great respect for the motives and efforts of every church group today, because I used to be on both sides of that coin.

What is most unfortunate is that most saints prefer it this way!

How often to pray for other believers? What do we pray for other believers?

For a long while now, I have felt somewhat inadequate in my prayers for my brothers and sisters in Christ. I want the family of God to be blessed and strengthened and helped… but what should I actually be asking God for when praying for them? I end up asking God to “bless them” and “help them,” especially when I don’t have any other specific needs I know about for these individuals whom God has placed in my sphere of influence. Of course there is great truth in “The Holy Spirit making intercession for (through) us, with groanings that cannot be uttered,” however, Jesus also instructed his followers to ask, and ask specifically.

I have also noticed this deficiency when praying together with my two young boys for a variety of other children (we take turns praying for the different children we know) – and that has proved the most challenging. How can I teach my own boys how to properly pray for others when I myself lack the right words? As it turns out, the scriptures have more than enough information on this subject within the epistles alone to give the believer the right direction they need when praying for the saints…

First of all, the most common greeting and prayer that the New Testament writers made known to their audience is that “grace and peace” would be given to them continually. Grace from God to help them at all times. Peace to keep their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. This request is mentioned so often and so consistently, that listing these verses would be pointless and repetitive. May the reader understand that this prayer, being so consistent in the epistles, might be the most important and most potent prayer we can pray for others in the body of Christ. Grace and peace continually.

Having that said, I have broken down the following scriptures into two categories:

1. Prayers for the Saints Everywhere

2. Prayers for the Apostolic Church Planters

The meat of this study is simply listing these excerpts below for the parousal of the reader. From simply reading through these verses from the epistles, a clear pattern becomes evident in their prayer requests for the saints. All excerpts below are from the NLT version of the Bible for simplicity of theme in this study. I have underlined what I have noticed are some common themes in these passages especially worth noticing.

Prayers for the Saints Everywhere:

Romans – So I pray that God, who gives you hope, will keep you happy and full of peace as you believe in him. May you overflow with hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 1 - Do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:

Asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.

I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the wonderful future he has promised to those he called. I want you to realize what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people.

I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him.

Colossians 1 – We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have continued praying for you ever since we first heard about you.

We ask God to give you a complete understanding of what he wants to do in your lives, We ask him to make you wise with spiritual wisdom. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and you will continually do good, kind things for others. All the while, you will learn to know God better and better.

We also pray that you will be strengthened with his glorious power so that you will have all the patience and endurance you need.

Epaphras, from your city, a servant of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. He always prays earnestly for you, asking God to make you strong and perfect, fully confident of the whole will of God. I can assure you that he has agonized for you and also for the Christians in Laodicea and Hierapolis.

Galatians 1 – Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. I always pray for you, and I make my requests with a heart full of joy

I pray that your love for each other will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in your knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until Christ returns.

1 Corinthians – I can never stop thanking God for all the generous gifts he has given you, now that you belong to Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians – We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly.

As we talk to our God and Father about you, we think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and your continual anticipation of the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.

May the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until that day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.

2 Thessalonians – We keep on praying for you, that our God will make you worthy of the life to which he called you.

And we pray that God, by his power, will fulfill all your good intentions and faithful deeds.

May the Lord bring you into an ever deeper understanding of the love of God and the endurance that comes from Christ.

Prayers for the Apostolic Church Planters:

Romans – Join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Do this because of your love for me, given to you by the Holy Spirit. Pray that I will be rescued from those in Judea who refuse to obey God. Pray also that the Christians there will be willing to accept the donation I am bringing them. Then, by the will of God, I will be able to come to you with a happy heart, and we will be an encouragement to each other.

2 Thessalonians – I ask you to pray for us. Pray first that the Lord’s message will spread rapidly and be honored wherever it goes, just as when it came to you. Pray, too, that we will be saved from wicked and evil people, for not everyone believes in the Lord.

One brief observation to start, before summarizing a few of the main themes in these passages. It is telling to note that all the prayer requests the writers mentioned were for the spiritual well being of the saints. No prayer requests are mentioned in any of these passages for the physical or material blessing of the saints. This is not to suggest that they never prayed for these things, or that these things were unimportant in the lives of the saints – however one thing seems certain notwithstanding: if the material well-being of the saints was not mentioned once in any of the prayers listed in these passages, then it probably should not be the primary focus of our prayers for God’s people today, and it is not the main purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught about money and material possessions of course, but with the common theme of how unimportant these carnal concerns were in the light of God’s everlasting kingdom they were entering. The cry of the New Testament writers was solely for the spiritual health and growth of the saints of God everywhere.

Unceasing prayers offered: On the question of how often the New Testament leaders fathers prayed for the saints, it is clear that the writers strove unceasingly in prayer for the saints and churches they knew of. This they specifically stated in at least 5 different letters. Therefore first and foremost, consistent and continual prayers were offered up for the saints of God. This, it seems, was a foundational part of the apostles ministry to the churches. As they labored for the sake of the many churches they had planted, teaching and admonishing them to continue in the Lord, it was from a solid foundation of countless tears and prayers for them.

Giving thanks for the saints: It also is worth noting that thanking God for the wonderful work he had done and was doing in the churches and the saints is consistently recorded. Even when the writer had no immediate hand in planting a church, it is stated that he gave continual thanks to God for them when he heard about them.

That God would give them understanding: This is the most often repeated theme among all the verses listed above.

Prayers were that they would understand:

- the wonderful future he has promised to those he called & what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people.

- the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him

- what God wanted to do in their lives – the love of God and the endurance that comes from Christ.

- what really matters

The end result of understanding these different truths is also mentioned:

- so that they might grow in their knowledge of God

- so that the way they lived would always honor and please the Lord, and they would continually do good, kind things for others. All the while, they would learn to know God better and better

- so that they would then live pure and blameless lives

For me, this verifies the idea that all that Christ has provided for His saints is fully at their disposal from the moment of their new birth into the kingdom of God. Unlimited power, wisdom, grace, peace, help from the Father – all these things and a host of others had been given to the believer from day one. The growing and maturing process in the Lord subsequent to initial faith in Christ consisted primarily in understanding more and more what they already possessed! We as believers today already have the powers and wisdom and character of the world to come, but only in the very modest measures that we can understand and handle. It would seem that the work of the enemy then, would be primarily focused on hindering our understanding of the great kingdom power and life we have in Christ.

This could be compared to the son of a great king. If he has no understanding of the royal blood flowing through his veins, then he might be found living as a pauper in the ghettos of the city. However, when he realizes who he is – what royal bloodline flows through his veins, what royal seal hangs upon his finger, the great authority in the name he bears – he will soon move into the castle with the king, begin exercising his royal authority, begin seeking justice for the weak and powerless with confidence, and begin driving out the enemy from his lands without fear.

What would happen if we truly understood what we have at our disposal! If only we would understand the reality of the eternal life we have been given! If only we would truly grasp the unlimited power we have through the Holy Spirit! If only we would begin to understand what God’s ultimate maturing work is aimed at – in each of our lives and hearts. We would begin exercising our God-given authority with confidence and soundness of mind, and resting at all times in the patient work He is doing in us.

Make them holy & complete: Another common theme was the perfection (completeness) of the saints. That God would make them worthy of the wonderful life he’d given them, make them holy in every way, that they would live pure and blameless lives, that the way they would live would always honor and please the Lord, and that they would do good kind things for others. The maturity of character (holiness) and a completeness of good works (love) of each saint seems to be the major end purpose of the gospel of God for his people while they are on this earth – and the NT writers seemed to verify this, always praying that the churches and the saints would eventually become complete in all that they were lacking, as they grew in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Other specific prayers are mentioned in these passages which may be just as important to take note of when praying for the saints, but for now I have only taken the time to cover the major patterns in these verses. I pray that this brief study may give the saints of God everywhere the right tools for what to pray and how to pray for other brothers and sisters! May the people of God labor in prayer for all people, especially for the saints of God everywhere!

—With a lot of love, Sean Hyatt (Aurora)

THE QUESTION:How does your house church deal with (or avoid) the issue of finances?
Leave a comment, we want to hear what you have to say

Money matters. We all know this. For those of us who are part of the movement to return to the simple roots of the New Testament Church, we have also recognized there is something quite wrong about how the “traditional church” in America has dealt with finances. Neil Cole, a simple church thought leader, says that nothing slows down organic church multiplication like Buildings, Budgets, and Bigshots. I would say we have alot of all three. One might even look at the American church and surmise that church and finances are like oil and water…they just don’t mix.

Many house churches have sought to eliminate the resource draining “three B’s,” but in their place is a vacuum. I have been apart of, and read about, a multitude of church networks. Almost without exception, there is a lack of clarity around the issues of finances. I have felt prompted by the Spirit to begin revisiting what the Scripture has to say about finances, and hear what other spiritual families are learning. Also, since I have a full time job in web design, I can ask these questions without some of the awkwardness that others might feel who raise support.

So I would love to hear from you…How does your house church deal with (or avoid) the issue of finances?

Here are some questions I am exploring.

• What does the Bible say about how we are to use our finances to further the kingdom of God?
• Can we, or should we, prioritize how we use our money? Potential areas of usage are the poor, brothers & sisters in Christ, apostles (overseers of larger church networks), etc.
• We are the richest nation in the world, and yet we as a nation and individual people are increasingly in debt. What are the consequences of this as a body of Christ? How can we show a “different way?”
• Who are the people in our church networks that should be freed up, or kept free, to lead the church without the potential distraction of outside employment? Are we supporting them? If not, do they feel free to ask for support?
• The issue of finances can raise such confusion and fear. I know as a pastor’s kid, I saw how money could divide in church politics. How can we approach this differently, organically, simply?
• Jesus was far more concerned about questions than answers, he almost never directly answered a question. So, what are the QUESTIONS Jesus wants us to be asking about money, what questions DID he ask about money? How will joining with him in that dialogue enrich our spiritual families?

What are your thoughts?
What are your questions?