Supplication

Supplication. Now there’s an old word not used much anymore. In fact, it took me a few dictionaries to even find the word. I’m familiar with it because it’s used in the old King James Version of the Bible. Here are a couple of examples.

Philippians 4:6 – “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”

I Timothy 2:1 – “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men…”

You get the idea, I’m sure. It’s the part of prayer that has to do with asking. We’re good at that, aren’t we? Sometimes we forget about the first 3 parts of the ACTS model of prayer (Adoration, Confession, and Thanksgiving) and just engage in the S for supplication part. That’s easy. Since God is the source of everything and can do anything, we ask Him for a lot. And we are supposed to ask. That’s OK. And that’s not a problem. It’s just that we need to balance our prayers with all of the components we’ve talked about in my previous blogs.

But today, let’s look at the asking part. The supplications which are earnest, heart-felt petitions for others and for our own needs. As long as we aren’t selfish (easier said than done), we are encouraged in the Word to ask for what we need.

Matthew 7:11 (NIV) – “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

James 4:3 (NIV) – “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

1 John 5:14-15 (NLT) – “And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.”

I still have a lot to learn about prayer, how about you? Aren’t these verses good guidelines for our supplications, and for our prayers, in general?