With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.
—Ephesians 6:18
Notice how Paul repeated the words in the intensity of his desire to reach the hearts of his readers: “With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons…watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication.” It is “all prayer…all seasons…all perseverance and supplication.”
Paul felt so deeply the unity of the body of Christ, and he was so sure that that unity could only be realized in the exercise of love and prayer, that he pleaded with the believers at Ephesus to pray unceasingly and fervently for all believers, not only all believers in their immediate circle, but also all believers in all the church of Christ of whom they might hear. Paul knew that unity is strength. As we exercise this power of intercession with all perseverance, we will be delivered from self with all its feeble prayers, and our hearts will be enlarged so that the love of Christ can flow freely and fully through us.
The great lack in true believers often is that, in prayer, they are occupied with themselves and with what God must do for them. Here we have a call to every believer to give himself without ceasing to the exercise of love and prayer. As we forget ourselves, in the faith that God will take charge of us, and as we yield ourselves to the great and blessed work of calling down the blessings of God on our fellowmen, the whole church will be equipped to do its work in making Christ known to every creature. This alone is the healthy and blessed life of a child of God who has yielded himself wholly to Christ Jesus.
Pray for God’s children and the church around you. Pray for all the work in which they are engaged, or ought to be. Pray “at all seasons in the Spirit” for all believers. There is no blessedness greater than that of abiding communion with God. And there is no way that leads to the enjoyment of this more surely than the life of intercession for which these words of Paul appeal so pleadingly.