Asking for Prayer

 One of the best compliments we can receive is for someone to ask us to pray for them. It shows us that we have a reputation of a righteous person who knows how to pray to get through to God.  It also shows that the other person trusts us to be serious about their need and to keep things confidential if that is needed. There is no higher honor and no greater responsibility we can receive than a request to pray for someone or something. We must always take it very seriously and pray diligently.

King Zedekiah was in a hard place himself, because the king  of Babylon was preparing to take over the city of Jerusalem. He knew that would lead to much destruction and death. He didn't know just what to do. (Jeremiah 37:3) "Nevertheless, King Zedekiah sent Jehucal, son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the priest, son of Maaseiah, to ask Jeremiah, "Please pray to the Lord our God for us." We can learn some prayer lessons as we think about why the king asked Jeremiah to pray after all of the prophet's messages saying Jerusalem would be destroyed.

The king must have seen something in Jeremiah to make him think he was a righteous man, even if he didn't like everything he was saying. If we stand up for what is right and share the message of the Lord even when it is not popular, people see that, and they respect us. They know that we are the kind of person God hears because we do not regard sin in our heart. (Psalm 66:18) Also, they see that we are fervent about the things of the Lord, and God listens to the fervent prayers of righteous people. (James 5:16)

So I have a question for all of us. Who would you call on today if you had an urgent need? Who have you called on in the past? I ask that because we need to band together to pray to the Lord our God for our country. We need to bind our hearts together, as believers, to ask God to spare our land from destruction and to send a revival. (II Chronicles 7:14) We need to do the same thing for our families and for our churches. The Lord is our only hope, and your prayer partner or prayer group can make a huge difference.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Jeremiah 38-40.