Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Colossians chapter 4, verses 12 and 13.

Epaphrus, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greet you, always struggling on your

behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the

will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laotasia

and in Hieropolis. What a great description of Apophorus! As Paul is closing out this letter to these

Colossian Christians, he's listing all these different names, and he comes to Apophis,

and he says, here's a servant of Jesus who struggles on your behalf in his prayers.

What a great description of love for somebody else that you care

about them so much that you struggle on their behalf in prayer, meaning you labor. That's the

language that verse 13 uses to describe epaphras. He worked hard for you. How did he work hard? Well,

one of the ways he worked hard for these Colossian Christians was by praying for them.

Like, he worked hard, he labor, he struggled in prayer for them. I want to encourage you to consider

who are you struggling in prayer for? There should be people in our lives

who we labor, struggle continually for in prayer, who we work hard to pray for. And this is where I just

want to encourage you to think about people in your sphere of influence. Who is God

calling you to struggle in prayer for? And then I hope that part of participation in this podcast,

and I use that word participation intentionally, not just listen to this podcast. We're praying

together on this podcast. I hope that it's helping you learn to struggle for people you don't know for unreached people

around the world.

But we're called to struggle, to labor, to work hard in prayer for others.

And at the same time, we need other people who are laboring, struggling, working hard in prayer

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