I will pray for you.
I will keep you in my prayers.
You are in my thoughts and prayers.
You are in my thoughts.
There is a spectrum of promises in the above statements from a very strong statement like “I will pray for you” to a much weaker declaration “you are in my thoughts.”
These statements have become clichés in our godless society and I have seen even secular people make them. We have arrived at a point where such promises have lost their values because people may not follow through on these difficult to fulfill promises.
So we water them down. We go from promising to dedicate time in prayer for someone to promising to think about someone.
I would like to warn Delight in Truth readers to guard your promises carefully, and not make the promise of prayer if you know you cannot keep it. Prayer is not something to be taken lightly. Prayer is antithetical to everything that makes up the carnal man, and that is why prayer is not easy.
When you promise to pray for someone, you promise to engage in a spiritual battle on their behalf, and it is a great thing when you follow through on it. When you pray for someone you are interceding for them, and it literally means you are standing in the gap for them in prayer. Paul confirms this in Ephesians 6:18 where he talks about “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints…”
And when you do follow through on your promise to pray you must remember the all-powerful Intercessors you have on your side!
- Jesus Himself our LORD and savior is the ultimate intercessor, and the best thing you can do is to lift up your subject to Jesus. As a man you cannot be an effective advocate in prayer without Jesus. I love how Isaiah presents Christ as the final intercessor to the Father: “He [the LORD] saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. Isaiah 59:16
- The Holy Spirit is also your intercessor and ally in prayer and will sustain you as you pray for someone. My favorite chapter in the Bible, Romans 8, provides amazing Scripture about the Holy Spirit helping us in prayer: “26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
Prayer is spiritual warfare and it is not easy, but when we have Jesus and the Holy Spirit as intercessors, we can become effective intercessors ourselves for the those who need us to pray for them.
We must take the promise of prayer for others very seriously and ground ourselves in the teaching of Scripture that Jesus and His Holy Spirit will intercede for our prayer subject!
Delight in Truth 
It is indeed sad when we make promises we cannot keep. It’s out fast-paced, impersonal, irresponsible and individualistic society that we live in that has much to do with our behavior.
Many times I’ve been asked the question “how are you?” I once asked someone if they want the short version or the long version.
It comes up a lot in interviews on television and radio. The reporter or interviewer will often say, “Are you suggesting that…..?” The irritable part of me wants to answer, “I am not only suggesting it I am plainly saying it.” The dynamic of using the word “suggest” implies we cannot really speak the truth or know it, we can only “suggest” it. Some seem to live in a world where nothing is certain, (except that nothing is certain) and thus we can only “suggest.” It is an attitude of cultivated uncertainty.
This excerpt below illustrates another example of relativity/irresponsibility:
Another annoying little word that has crept into the vocabulary of many, especially younger people, is the word “like.” As in: “It’s like, y’know”. Or when asked an ordinary question such as “Why didn’t you do your homework?” The answer may come back, “Well, y’know it’s like, I was busy?” At one level the over use of the word “like” is just an annoying and unconscious habit. But it also seems to flow from the climate of cultivated uncertainty. Instead of something being what it actually is, it is “like” something. So instead of the student simply declaring, “I was busy and neglected to do my homework, for which I take responsibility” they say rather, “It was, like, I was busy.” But what does “like being busy” amount to and how does it differ from actually being busy? This habit of using “like” comes from a culture which says “Don’t actually say what you mean, be vague and uncertain. After all nothing is really all that clear. Nothing really is what it is, it’s just like something else. Using “like” also helps a person evade direct responsibility for what they actually do.
The voice of relativism in an individualistic society is expressed through our verbal terminology. Many today are vague and uncertain in their speech because our culture sees it as attractive. Jesus says, Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. (Matt 5:37). A modern version of this is “Say what you mean. Mean what you say.
You are right. Unfortunately we live in a world of cliches and we are hiding behind phrases like “you are in my thoughts and prayers” or “like” to quickly diffuse a tense or uncomfortable situation. My post was geared toward being careful when saying a powerful statement like “I am praying for you” to make sure we understand its meaning.
What kills me is when preachers get behind the pulpit and start using words that nobody has used for 100 hundred years…just heard one last night: “sa ne rugam ptr. bucate ” 🙂
Chris,
Could the statement ” I’m praying for you” or “you’re in my prayers”, be considered a “vow”?.
Interesting to ponder… It certainly is a promise. Could possibly go under the category of Matthew 5:37 Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
In the strictest most conservative approach a vow is a covenant which is more than a contract… could it be as far as an oath or swearing (oath sense) which is what Matt 5:37 refers to?
Ecclesiastes 5:5 It is better that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay.
I know it’s a little out of context, but it could still apply.
Greetings friend, I’m Melissa Crawford and I appreciate the prophecy that I found on your webpage. My husband wanted me to invite you to share with our live video streaming e-revival audience as soon as possible. At Spirit University he is training a team of prophetic students and we are all receiving end time visions, dreams and words like yours. One of our students has been seeing fireballs falling from Heaven and as you know, one actually fell on Russia.
Many other prophetic signs are being confirmed at our e-Revival.
Everyone receives a prophetic word by my husband James Crawford; if they request one and we have an e-Revival every day! We would love to have you or anybody else’s prophecies shared at God’s revival!
Times you can call in to share:
Mon – Fri at 10:45 am & 7 pm (central)
Sat. at 4 pm (central)
Sun. at 11 am (central)
Feel free to call our cell at (318) 655-2297 or email james@world-hops.com for more information.
Keep up the good work and God bless you.