Do the work of prayer

Brethren, pray for us. (1 Thessalonians 5:25)

“Sickness, age, obscurity, illiteracy, and poverty cannot hinder the power of prayer.” - Charles Spurgeon

If you are a Christian-- if you have confessed Jesus as Lord-- then, since He is your Lord, you wish to serve Him. But all who wish to serve God struggle, at least at times, with the question of how we can best serve Him; you will face questions such as: what job should I pursue? where should I live? etc.

Furthermore, you may feel discouraged in your work for Christ. You may think you lack intelligence or boldness or passion. You may feel that you lack the time or the health to commit yourself to Jesus.

And so what can you do?

First, you can pray. Prayer-- calling out to God for His will to be done in your life and in the lives of others, bringing our requests before Him-- is commanded. And it cannot be stopped. As long as a believer is conscious, he or she can call out to God. The bedridden saint dying of cancer can perform the service of prayer. The one who is homeless, uneducated, and despised by the world can render the service of prayer. The businessman can call out to God on His way traveling to and from appointments each day. And you can pray, coming daily before the throne of grace.

Even if you find yourself unable to personally travel to a foreign nation, you can be part of seeing Christ's kingdom manifested throughout the earth as you pray for missionaries.

Even if you cannot give large sums of money to the needy, you can call out to God, who owns everything, that He will open up His storehouses.

The only major hurdle to prayer is that we often do not value prayer as we should, and so we allow our time to be filled with other things, robbing ourselves of this great opportunity for service.