What do you pray for? How someone answers
that question says a lot about what is close to their heart.



Prayer is clearly a very important theme
in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. As the
apostle sits in chains in a Roman prison, writing this letter, he keeps coming
back to this topic of prayer. He prays for his
readers, that they will be able to lift their eyes to see the greatness of
God’s purposes and plans through his Son Jesus Christ. He prays that they
won’t be discouraged by the news of his imprisonment. He prays that they
will be able to grasp how immense
God’s plans and purposes are, and how immeasurably vast is his love for us
through Christ. In previous posts in this series on Ephesians, we’ve seen that
prayer
involves praise, humility, thanksgiving, and asking God for things. We’ve
seen that the
God to whom we pray is both infinitely wise and powerful, and also our loving
heavenly Father who is patient and kind and willing to forgive. These great
truths should shape our prayers and encourage us to pray more and more.







Now, at the end of Paul’s letter, after
modelling his own prayers to his readers, he asks them to pray. What’s
more, he gives them some specific instructions and requests about what
to pray for. We can learn a lot from Paul’s words here about what we should be
praying for. Of course, we can pray for anything, big or small: our daily
needs, our personal struggles, our relationships, our loved ones, and our hopes
and dreams. God always hears believers in Christ when they pray. Yet for Paul,
there is something central to God’s plans and purposes that he wants his
readers especially to pray for. It’s at the heart of what Paul has been
writing about throughout his letter to the Ephesians. In short, Paul wants his
readers to pray for evangelism. He wants them to pray that the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ will go out to the world, both through his readers and
through others.



Paul writes:



And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—that is, God’s word—praying with every kind of prayer and petition, at every opportunity, by the Spirit. To that end, stay alert with all perseverance and every kind of petition for the holy ones and for me. Pray that the word would be given me as I open my mouth, so that I can boldly make known the secret of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I would be bold in speaking it, as I must.Ephesians 6:17–20



What exactly is Paul asking his readers
to pray about here? And why does he see it as so important?



Salvation and evangelism: The final
armour for the struggle



At this point, Paul
is finishing off his call to his readers to “put on the full
armour of God” (Ephesians 6:10). He’s been urging them to take their part in
God’s great spiritual battle. Throughout his letter, Paul has been describing how God is fulfilling his plan to “sum up all
things in Christ: things in heaven