Sometimes it’s hard for me to know what to pray for others. So when I read this passage recently I wrote it in the front of my journal, where I’ll see it regularly and remember to pray these words over those friends and family the Lord brings to mind.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

Good deeds and good words remain in short supply. It’s reassuring to know the strength of the Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit, infuses us as we step out into the world.

Scripture provides a powerful basis for our prayers, as we believe these words came from God to the writer. With this in mind, pray for one another, emboldened in the eternal encouragement and good hope gained from the Lord.

2 Thessalonians 2 in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo by Matt Walsh