Dear BPCWA worshipper, Let us continue to recap our church theme for this year from
Eph 6:18 “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching
thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints”.

Watching in prayer. The word for “watch” here means “to keep awake”. But, my
brethren, can I ask, how has been your life of prayer since then and recently? Have you
been watching thereunto? Or have you been distracted or slumbering again? This is
certainly why I am recapping the church theme in greater detail here. Perhaps we may
have gone to the church camp and our hearts were challenged. Reminded by the Word
and roused by the atmosphere and the time allocated to prayer during the camp, we
renewed our personal prayer closets and enjoyed the time in communion with our Father.
We wrote our reflections with thoughtfulness about what we would do after camp. We
may have left the camp with deep convictions and fresh resolutions to pray as God
intends us to pray. At the camp echo meeting, many of us shared earnestly about how
God stirred in our hearts to have a genuine life of prayer moving forward. Realising our
shortcomings and where we had fallen short in the past, the week that followed camp was
a blessed time of praying all prayers with sincerity and consistency. Have we returned to
the “doing” without the “praying” as we go through our daily lives i.e. leaning only on the
arms of our flesh and not upon the power of God?

With all perseverance. We may yearn for a deeper love for God, or the power to
overcome a certain temptation. But have we prayed for it with all perseverance? Yearning
is but wistful longing. It is no substitute for actual persevering prayer. A parent may know
a child wishes to have something. But only when the child yearns sufficiently for it to
approach the parent to ask ardently for it, then the parent deems that the child genuinely
wants it, and it isn’t just one of the many things that they hope to get but does not matter
if it does not materialise. That is what it is with us too, when it comes to our spiritual walk.
Prayer is not just about satisfying our conscience that we have prayed, but because we
earnestly desire the spiritual needs we are praying for. Such a heart will have persevering
prayer. God also reminds us that “. . . ye have not, because ye ask not . . .” (James 4:2). We
wish to live on a higher ground but at the same time, we may wish to have the world too.
So wishing isn’t an indication of genuine sincerity. We tend to be creatures of habit . . . but
sadly not in the habit of prayer. Some may mourn and say that they’re bored if they’ve got
too much time on their hands during school holidays, if they don’t work, when they are
free – but if you ask them if they have prayed, the reply may be a “no”. To them, praying is
“boring”, but talking to other people or doing things is “fun” or “fulfilling”. Keeping
constant in prayer is indeed one of our biggest challenges. This is because prayer itself is a
battle. It requires perseverance. It is where the battle is won or lost. And so, our foe will
relentlessly do all he can to keep us from this place of prayer. It is impossible to have a
good spiritual walk when we don’t have a good life of prayer. Let us come back to our
prayer closets if we have left it behind.

Purposeful Prayer. We very often don’t need to be reminded to pray for ourselves, our
families, or those close to us. That is usually our priority in prayer, if and when we do pray.
But that is insufficient because it then shows that our hearts are only for ourselves, and
prayer is merely asking God to do what I want and what is important to me or those
related immediately to me. Who and what we pray for often shows where our hearts and
our treasures lie and what we see as the purpose for prayer. If our hearts are yearning for
heaven and God, we will have a concern for the saints around us and God’s work and
testimony too. Prayer must never be just about us. If prayer is where the battle is won or
lost, then prayer must accompany every action and wish. Is a brother or sister overtaken
in a sin? Pray for them to awaken out of their sinful slumber and habit. But more
importantly, when the Apostle Paul tells us to pray for all saints, it is because every saint is
commissioned to do God’s work and fulfil God’s purposes on earth. Every week as we say
the Lord’s prayer we close with “For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for
ever and ever, Amen”. This must be the weekly reminder to us that whether in our
corporate or private prayers, that is our sole purpose of life, and hence must be the
purpose of our prayers too – God’s kingdom, God’s power, and God’s glory. When we pray
for someone to be saved, it is for them to know God and to be part of His called-out ones
to live and do battle for Him. When we pray for someone to return to God, it is so that
they will not live lives that shame the Name of God that they bear when they call
themselves a “Christian”. We must then realise that prayer is not merely about
individuals, but it is about God’s work. God’s kingdom is progressed through the work of
His local church. We must therefore be fervent in praying for BPCWA, where He has
placed you. Satan will always be on the lookout to attack the church. When the church is
attacked, it is like a fell swoop – the teaching of God’s Truth on the pulpit is ineffective or
stops, God’s sheep scatter and fall because they don’t know His Word, errors and
problems distract the church from the progress of His work here, and the testimony of His
Name is marred. It is not as if there’ve been no attacks on God’s work in BPCWA before. If
we are useful for furthering God’s truth, then God’s enemy won’t take it lying down. If we
fail to pray perseveringly and take things for granted, we are fighting a spiritual warfare in
the flesh instead of depending on God’s power for victory. Everyone in BPCWA must be
committed to praying for the church. In the Old Testament, the saints were told to “Pray
for the peace of Jerusalem . . . 7 Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy
palaces. 8 . . . Peace be within thee” (Ps 122:6-8). Let us now in the New Testament not
forget that we must pray for the peace of the church here, “Because of the house of the
LORD our God I will seek thy good” (Ps 122:9). Beyond praying for the peace of the church,
we must pray for the progress of God’s Word through the church and pray that the church
will be steadfast and unwavering in the work of the Lord. We must pray that the church
will be pure and spotless, befitting of the Bride of Christ, so that the ministries of the
church will prosper spiritually in the work that we endeavour to do for the Lord. We must
“Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his
harvest” (Mt 9:38). The list goes on . . . we can never have “enough” prayer because there
is so much that we must always be doing for our Lord.

Spiritual success for the Lord is critically dependent upon spiritual labour – the labour of
prayer. So, please do labour in prayer for the saints. As we end the year and begin to focus
on another church theme for 2024, I hope that the lessons in prayer will never be
forgotten. It is my prayer that we will – and we must – build another generation of
Christians who will commit themselves to praying for God’s kingdom, power, and glory.
Only when we have that will God’s work through BPCWA succeed. May we give of
ourselves to persevere in this ministry until He calls us to our eternal rest! Will you give
yourself in service to God by praying for BPCWA, even as Epaphras did for the Colossian
church?

Col 4:12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always
labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete
in all the will of God.

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor