Praying for Each Other: the Need of the Hour
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
James 5: 16
The moment we step into the internet nowadays, one of the first things that greet us is either a notification of breaking news, an updated statistical graph that shows a stark variation of its numbers, a request for prayer, a video that shows either the struggle of a country or a celebration of a community's security from the deadly disease. Our morning news updates have become so familiar to shocking news; something that we wouldn't have imagined a few years ago. We have slowly learned to take up and accept "thousands of deaths" as a regular number. But what can we do to come over this situation?
I am not just going to remind you to pray! I am going to remind ourselves to Pray for Each Other. Yes! Praying for each other must be an essential part of the Christian lifestyle and it is indeed the need of the hour for the nations to be healed.
Two important things happen during the process of praying for each other. We prepare ourselves to pray for the other by first confessing our sins, and then after praying, healing happens. Healing comes from confession of sins and praying, especially praying for each other.
Today we may continue to criticise, comment, and expect some miracle to happen so that the world would be delivered and liberated from this deadly virus. Some of us may be confident about the vaccines that we have received and would have forgotten how clueless we were as scientifically, technologically and medically supreme human beings of our times in March 2020, when the whole world came to a halt. Surely we are not confident about what may be coming up in the next few weeks. But there is one thing that we could be assured of, and that is God's wisdom, His time, His never-fading mercy and His abundant compassion.
As Christians, we are called, first of all, to confess our sins and then to pray for each other, so that there will be healing in our nations. It is not just our contribution to the world's struggle to come out of this situation, but it is our calling and bounden duty to do so. There are numerous circumstances when we could go and get involved, do the best that we can with the sacrificial efforts that we could make towards the betterment of the condition. But praying for each other is something that we could do always and from anywhere.
Let us be encouraged to be believers and followers of Christ Jesus who reminded us to pray at all times. A selfless and diligent prayer always becomes a great weapon that brings in deliverance among people and sets them free from their limited and restricted conditions. And these "people" are no one else but those who are in need and those, especially, who have expressed their needs and struggles to us. Let us help them, do our best to make their lives better and remember to pray for them.
May the power and blessings of God the Father, the love and grace of Christ Jesus the Son, and the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, be with us, as we continue to uphold each other, uphold each other's community, society and our neighbouring countries in this time of struggle in our prayers.
May God bless you.
Yours in Christ,
"My Prayer For You" by Alisa Turner
