Philemon 1:4-5

The constituent parts of acceptable prayer: thanksgiving, intercession, personal petitions.

1. An example of these here, incidentally given, not purposely , , St. Paul's practice with regard to Philemon. He was not familiarly known to the apostle. Perhaps it was with a certain surprise he learned that the great apostle habitually "made mention of him" in his prayers. In like manner, many Christians are being helped, without their own knowledge, by the prayers of others. The apostle ' s example to be followed .

2. Thanksgiving a necessary part of prayer . "I thank my God." If this be omitted, we are ungrateful, and so our devotion will not be acceptable to God. We must thank God for past mercies bestowed upon us and upon others. Our service is not really devotion without this, but the reverse. A want of duty towards God therefore a sin ( Psalms 109:7 ).

3. Intercession for others . "Making mention of thee always in my prayers." This the duty thrown upon us by our Christian fellowship. In this the "communion of saints" is shown forth. It is not to be confined to our immediate connections and friends. Philemon was not intimately known to St. Paul, yet he was remembered by him. Prayer without intercession is selfish , and therefore unacceptable to God. It may be that their too manifest selfishness of tone is the reason that many of our prayers do not obtain from God the answer they crave ( Isaiah 1:15 ). It ought always to embrace the whole Church of Christ, not merely that part of it in which we are immediately interested. This would have a reflex action upon ourselves, and would tend towards eventual union among us; for when the sympathies of the heart are wide, the sympathies of the intellect will hardly remain narrow.

4. Petitions for our personal needs are never likely to be absent from our prayers. The danger will be that they should form too large a part of them. They need to be restrained and regulated, not indulged. As the Christian grows in saintliness, his prayers for self will come to be more and more for spiritual blessings instead of temporal . At length they will be merged in the comprehensive petition that God's will may be done in the petitioner, and his Name glorified.

5. To cease analysis, and take a complete view of prayer, we find it to sum up in itself all the sentiments which the human soul should entertain towards its Divine Creator.

"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,

Uttered or unexpressed."

Therefore gratitude, confidence, affection, hope, anxiety for others or for ourselves, penitence, should all in their degree enter into our prayers. But none of these should monopolize them.