Published almost twenty years ago, “Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To” by Anthony DeStefano changed how I pray and how I experience God’s answers to my prayer. I’ll be spending the next few weeks talking about what I got from his book, and how applying the principles in this book to my own life changed me.
Phoebe, Risk–Taker Exraordinaire
“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord, as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.”
Romans 16:1-2 NRSVUE
People known to have wisdom and who were full of the Holy Spirit were specially chosen to minister to their churches. Phoebe was one such deacon of the church, who visited the sick, assisted the young women, and helped the poor. Her home was in Cenchreae, one of the two seaports of Corinth, strategically positioned to minister to the church. The Greek word attributed to Phoebe is προστάτις | prostatis, meaning “protector,” “patron,” or “benefactor.” In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, written in about the third century BCE) this word is used to signify an officer of the temple or palace. Phoebe was in a position to provide benefaction and protection to many, including Paul himself, and as a deacon would have been considered an officer in the church.
Paul urged the Roman church to assist Phoebe in everything that she required in the ministry Paul had sent her to do.
“God, Make Me an Instrument”
In his book, DeStafano asks what prayer do we think God might answer the fastest, a prayer that is so effective we can get our answer sometimes even within the hour? In fact, DeStefano warns, handle this prayer with care, because God answers it with such speed, consistency and reliability.
“God, please use me to help someone in need.”
“God, please make me an instrument to carry out some important mission of mercy for you.”
Be ready, the author warns. This person may be someone you know, a friend or neighbor or family member. Or they may be someone you do not particularly like, or who does not think too much of you. You may not know this person, but God will make you aware of their need, and God’s intention that you should help.
This has been the Lord’s purpose all along for God’s people—believers are described as being members of one body, with the Lord Jesus Christ as the head. God intends to take care of us through each other, and to bring love and mercy to the rest of the world through us. That is what it means to be God’s hands and feet. We are to be ready and actively looking for people to go to, and things to do for them.
God calls us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, meaning to take care of each other as well as we take care of ourselves. Jesus said the world would recognize us by this way of loving each other. “God, please use me to help someone in need.”
At the heart of love is self-giving, doing for others, finding joy in expressing God’s giving as God gives to you and me. This prayer ties into the essence of Who God is, God is love. We are really asking God to come into our lives and act through us. When you and I are serious about that, sincerely asking the Lord to make us an instrument of God’s love and mercy to someone else, then the act of praying becomes the act of loving our neighbor.
DeStefano points out this amazingly simple yet propfound truth:
When we help someone we reduce the amount of suffering in the world, we become part of the process of God working things together for good.
And, he anticipates what we might be thinking “Hey, wait a minute! I need someone to pray that for me! I’m the one who needs help!” There is no denying you and I can find ourselves in dire straits, and then it seems as though we have nothing to give. We are in the negative. But Jesus knew that when He said,
Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
Mark 8:35 NRSVUE
No matter how many problems you and I have, there will always be opportunities for us to help someone else in some way, and we will discover there is real joy in that. Our problems will seem a little smaller, because we were God’s instrument of love and mercy, and lessened the suffering in someone’s life.
And you and I will also discover another biblical truth:
The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
2 Corinthians 9:6 NRSVUE
When you and I sow to the Spirit, in love and mercy, and a willingness to serve, looking for ways to help others, that will also be our harvest in life.
Sowing to the Spirit
Phoebe’s story is unexpected and exciting! She was willing to use her resources in the Lord’s employ, including traveling to Rome with Paul’s letter to the churches in Rome, reading his letter and teaching on it to each church she visited. She most likely helped each church to make their own copy before continuing to the next congregation. You can hear more of her story below.
Make Me an Instrument
And there were many more Paul commended at the end of his letter.
Prisca and Aquila
When Paul originally left Athens and went to Corinth, he was penniless, discouraged, and feeling temporarily defeated in spirit. He needed a place to stay and set up his tent-making business in order to fund his preaching and teaching.
He soon met Priscilla and Aquila, who had been driven out of Rome by emperor Claudius’s edict evicting all Jews (incidentally, Emperor Claudius died five years before Paul wrote this letter to the Roman church, which is why Priscilla and Aquila were able to move back to Rome). They were also tent-makers, so they invited Paul to live and work with them. They ended up accompanying Paul to Ephesus to spread the gospel, and settled there when Paul continued on his missionary journey.
We do not know exactly what Paul was referring to when he said they “risked their necks for his life,” but when they were living for a while in Ephesus, Paul went through a traumatic experience that he later described as “having fought with wild beasts in the city of Ephesus,”[1 Corinthians 15:32]. The whole city had been brought to a riot over the fear that Paul’s preaching about Jesus Christ would threaten the silversmiths’ trade in silver idols. Paul and the other believers barely escaped that riot with their lives, and many believe it was then that Priscilla and Aquila risked their necks to protect Paul. They were a powerful influence for Christ wherever they went.
Andronicus and Junia
Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert in Asia for Christ. Greet Mary, who has worked very hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Israelites who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
Romans 16:5-7 NRSVUE, italics added
Women and men worked hard for the the Lord, side-be-side with Paul, though the work was dangerous and many sacrifices were required. Andronicus and Julia, both well-known apostles, were Paul’s kinsmen most likely in the sense that they were Jewish and probably from Paul’s tribe of Benjamin, seasoned Christians spreading the gospel together.
As Paul wrote one commendation after another, he mention the twins Tryphaena and Tryphosa (whose names mean “Delicate” and “Dainty”); a beloved elderly Persian woman named Persis; Rufus’s mother who took Paul in when he needed a mother’s tender loving car; Julia and Nereus’s sister, of Roman nobility and worthy of mention to Paul, sanctified to God. Single men and women, married couples, the enslaved, nobility, Greeks, Persians, the very wealthy, the young and the old, public officials as well Jewish kinsmen—all worked together as a family and all had an important part in God’s great work.
Each person had laid this prayer before the Lord, “God, please use me to help someone in need.”
[cover image: Photo by Pablo Rebolledo on Unsplash]
