- Romans 15:30 (NKJV) Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me.
Beware lest you turn your commitments to pray into “sneeze prayers.” “Sneeze prayer commitments” are like the “bless you” blessings we give when someone sneezes. Someone sneezes and we respond, “Bless you!” In most cases, what that means is virtually nothing; it is simply a social nicety.
I’m afraid we are apt to do the same thing when people share prayer requests: we respond, “I’ll be praying” or some variation of this, and then promptly forget about it. I must confess that there have been times that I have been guilty of this myself. However, the Holy Spirit strongly convicted me of this; after all, when I promise to pray for someone and then don’t…I am at best a promise breaker (due to human forgetfulness) and at worst a liar (knowing that I really have no plan to pray for the prayer request).
It would be better to not make a promise to pray than to make one and not keep it. However, what is even better, is making the promise and keeping it.
Both ends of this equation are prone to abuse (there are also “sneeze prayer request”), but there are also those times when people are truly in crisis and are crying out for someone to strive together with them in prayer.
What a privilege to join with someone in prayer – take it serious dear friend – in the end you may discover that it was your prayer that made the difference.
The ONE THING 
Good advice here…a little toe curling involved :), but good to have it brought back to my attention.
And the layout change looks good.
kris
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