Prayer For Boldness

And pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. Ephesians 6:19-20

One of the biggest ways the enemy wins the skirmishes we fight with him in this world is by silencing us through fear and shame. Have you ever heard him whisper, “you can’t share about Jesus, remember that sin you committed yesterday!” Have you ever felt the fear of other people’s opinions about you influencing your opportunity to bring Jesus into a situation?

In the verse above, the Apostle Paul was teaching about spiritual warfare and the armor and weapons we have to fight the enemy of the spiritual realm. He ends with this prayer and, I believe, ends by showing us how powerful a weapon prayer is in this fight.

Check out the verse… He is asking the Ephesian believers to pray for him. Not for finances or buildings. He is asking God to open his mouth in boldness to proclaim the Gospel as he should. Yes, you heard that right. A guy who was bold in proclaiming the Gospel is asking to continue and to be bolder in proclaiming the Gospel!

We sometimes put this super-hero status on the saints we read about in the Bible. Yet on closer study, we see the failures and struggles of almost every major figure in Scripture. For Paul, we know he struggled with a thorn in his flesh. Some kind of physical limitation that caused him a real struggle, so much so that he wrote and used it as an example to the Corinthian believers in his second letter to them. This led him to the conclusion in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

All this to say that even Paul, just like us needed to pray for boldness. To pray that God would use his efforts and his words towards proclaiming the Gospel. If Paul needed to pray for boldness, I know I need to. My guess is you do too. May we be believers who are willing to share the life-changing and healing reality of Christ with our Neighborhood, Community, County, State, and Country.

Praying for boldness for you and with you,
Pastor Mike


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