³⁰ Now I urge you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me,

Urgency describes the apostle Paul’s heart. Three times in the last six chapters of his letter to the Romans he “urges” his readers: first to “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice” (Rom 12:1); second, in our passage today, to “strive together with me in your prayers;” and lastly, to “keep your eye on” the troublemakers and false teachers (Rom 16:17). He also uses this word for one of the spiritual gifts: “he who exhorts (is to exercise his gift) in exhortation” (Rom 12:8), obviously a gift Paul himself demonstrates.

Paul called them to join him in a “striving” kind of prayer. He was not unaccustomed to this kind of prayer himself, as he was “always in my prayers making request” concerning his desire to visit the believers in Rome. He writes of the committed Christian life as being “devoted to prayer” (Rom 12:12). His disciples obviously picked up on his emphasis, as we see exemplified in E HEDEpaphras, “who is one … always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God” (Col 4:12). Prayer requires effort, earnestness and frequency.

Paul’s request highlights his own need for their prayer. One might think such a venerated, gifted apostle, who was used mightily by God and accomplished so much for the spread of Christianity, would not need as much prayer as other Christians who are much weaker spiritually. But that is to misunderstand things. Paul knew more than anyone his unworthiness and weakness in his work. Even a cursory reading of his letters and the history of Acts shows he was subjected to intense persecution, discouragement and hardships of all kinds. The burden of all the churches he had planted weighed heavily on him.

Three times he prayed that a particular “thorn in the flesh” would be removed from him (symbolic of the three times the Lord Jesus prayed that God would prevent the crucifixion). We take it his thrice-repeated prayer was intense. He learned, “My (Jesus’s) grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Prayer is the recognition of our need of God’s grace. Our weakness is the seedbed of prayer. And Paul here invites his readers to strive with him in seeking God’s grace. He asks as one who understands the lordship of Jesus and the love that the Spirit of God has for them all. He was always mindful that he was simply a servant and a recipient of God’s love first, and then an apostle, in that order (see Rom 1:1).

Lord, I confess my failure to recognize that I need Your grace and that others need my prayer for Your grace to them as well.