¹⁸ Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things. ¹⁹ And I urge you all the more to do this, so that I may be restored to you the sooner.

Urgent call for prayer is the hallmark of a Christian, the immediate need of God’s active, responsive presence. This is the evidence of a conscious need for daily, divine help. And it is the opposite of self-reliance, which is the hallmark of the non-believer. After all, what else can he do who rejects the God who made him. But for the Christian, he follows the example of Christ who, “In the days of His flesh … offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety” (Heb 5:7).

The writer to the Hebrews apparently felt the need to return to his readers sooner. Although he has at times rebuked or chastised them, he none-the-less, values their intercession with God on his behalf. But the reason for his prayer is somewhat of an enigma. He asserts his good conscience and desire to live honorably. He may have been under some accusations either from his readers or others who challenged his motives or behavior. Certainly when one writes the kind of things he has in this letter, criticism may be expected, particularly from those who may not take his rebukes kindly or in the spirit of submission. Even with prayer requests, it is possible for immature or waffling Christians, and even non-Christians, to respond with suspicion about the requester’s intentions. Not trying to distinguish between all of these, the writer asks for prayer for the readers as a whole.

Now the urgency of his return to them may be due to persecution by the same (kind of) people who may be trying to coerce the readers to abandon Christ and return to the strictures of the law, the so-called, Judaizers. Indeed, it is even possible the writer was in jail at the time of writing.

All this to say, that the need of prayer is urgent, no matter the situation. The doctrine conveyed in this letter is of the nature that unbelievers in support of self-achieving systems of religious law will always resist and suppress it. This touches at the core of spiritual warfare, and the greatest weapon we have in combatting it, besides the knowledge of the truth, is prayer. It is one thing to know right doctrine, but it is another to live by it. We need the enablement and protection of the Holy Spirit. And we need to pray for each other for that.

Lord, thank You for the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ and His loving sacrifice for my sins. In light of that, help me to walk in “a good conscience desiring to conduct [myself] honorably in all things.”