Evangelistic Prayer

Over at Toward a Godward Passion, Phil Siefkes has posted (is posting?) a series of entries about evangelistic prayer, in response to questions that arose as the group was looking at the book of Acts.

I like Pastor Siefkes's blog; his style is conversational, but thoughtful rather than blathery (as so many blogs - including mine, I often fear - tend to be). As a result, I don't have much difficulty reading his posts, even though it's clear that he's well-read and well-studied. And perhaps most importantly, he is always kind and respectful, even when I disagree with him.

He makes a very insightful point: that in Scripture, we find evangelistic prayer directed at not the unbeliever, but at the believer - that is to say, the evangelist (Acts 4:29, among other examples). I'm not going to go into more detail on that point here, because he has already put things very neatly, so you can just follow the link!

This leads into something I've struggled with for a long time: how do we handle intercessory prayer? Why do we request for someone else to be physically healed, when in the case of spiritual healing (saving faith), we are simply to present the message and not in this case to request God to take action?

I expect this is something I will continue to puzzle over. I trust that God knows my heart in either case, and I hope I will be able to find and follow his direction in the situations I encounter.

Image from http://tweetymom.wordpress.com/2008/03/25/prayer/