Prayer as Love

A few thoughts from Ajith Fernando:

In Christianity love is an end and not just a means to an end. That is, we don’t love only because we want to achieve something through that loving. Loving itself is an achievement. When we teach or train someone our aim is primarily not to help someone pass an exam well or do brilliantly in sports. True, those are legitimate aims, but they are not primary aims. If we work like that, we won’t be able to help Jesus in the forms that he comes to us as described in the parable of the sheep and the goats. There he comes as a hungry person in need of food, a thirsty person in need of drink, a naked person in need of food, and a sick person and a prisoner in need of a visit (Matt. 25:35-36). You don’t achieve much in terms of visible earthly success helping people like that.

Though there is a huge heavenly reward for such work, this is usually not recognised here on earth.

Praying for people is akin to that type of loving. Few people will know that we do it. Paul mentions in 10 of his thirteen letters that he prayed for his readers. And we too would do well to tell those we pray for that we are doing so, for it really encourages people to know that others are praying for them. But usually such prayer is not seen by others and is not recognised as a great achievement on earth. Rarely do people connect a huge success with the prayers of an individual, even though those prayers were a primary means of mediating that success. Today we are in the habit of giving awards for those whom we consider to have achieved something significant in their fields of labour. But I have never heard of an award given for “the intercessor of the year!”

But to the Christian love is an achievement! We have been successful when we have loved someone. Praying may be one of the most powerful forms of loving, and that is something we can do even when we are very weak physically …

People filled with love become joyous people.
Let’s become intercessors NOW!