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Epaphras…
Has a Great Zeal for You
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Paul said that Epaphras 'laboured greatly in prayer'. ...He was a good colleague and a faithful minister because his character was founded in prayer. Paul tells us that his prayer was largely intercessory. ...He was praying for them. What an insight Paul must have had into the character of Epaphras when they prayed together at Rome! Epaphras shared Paul's imprisonment while he stayed with him, and when he prayed for the church at Colossae Paul saw him in a new light. Like some modern minister praying with his church roll open before him, praying for his people one by one, I imagine that Epaphras in memory went through his distant flock member by member. This was when he remembered their limitations and difficulties: he prayed for them with insight and fervency and Paul's heart glowed. Men and women, if your heart has said in response to this story, 'I should like to be like that', be sure of this - the secret of this man's spiritual success was his prayer-life. He was great in soul because he prayed much and because he prayed with the unselfishness that marked all he did. Copy him in this and you will be easy to work with and careless about credit: you will learn his secret of co-operative service. Follow him here and your judgments of others will be sweetened and you will be known for your charity of thought. Earnest and persistent prayer was the secret of his sanctity. That secret is available to us all. My biography or your biography may be written in few words
or many (perhaps not written at all), but I will not grieve and I think
you will not grieve if at our passing it can truthfully be said of us, 'He
was a good colleague, was swift to see and ready to speak of the good in
others and reinforced all his service with persistent prayer'. W E Sangster Why Jesus Never Wrote a Book, pp 118-19 |
