PRAYER LUCHADORS!

"All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood the grace of God. You learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on ourb behalf, 8and who also informed us of your love in the Spirit."

-Colossians 1:6-8

In a world obsessed with platform, popularity, and personal gain, ending in perverse doctrines and carnal pitfalls, the Church sure could use fewer celebrities and more luchadors—faithful, unknown prayer-warriors like Epaphras. Paul describes him in Colossians 4:12 as one who is "always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God." In the original Greek, the word Paul uses is agonizomenos—to wrestle, to labor fervently, to agonize. Epaphras didn’t offer up shallow sentiments; he contended like a warrior in the spiritual ring for the Church.

Epaphras isn’t a typical household name, but Paul commended him as a "beloved fellow servant" (Col. 1:7). This was a man Paul trusted with the spiritual formation of a church. What was the hallmark of his ministry? Prayer. Not self-seeking prayer. Not prosperity-fueled petitions. But gritty, God-centered, Kingdom-advancing intercession.

Contrast that with much of what passes for "prayer" today: the endless streams of personal wish-lists asking God to increase our comfort, territory, and material gain. It exposes that too many are still imprisoned and held captive by the stoicheia—the fundamental principles of the world (Col. 2:8), nothing more than mammon (see Matt 6:24) dressed in religious language. Prayers for platforms instead of perseverance. For followers instead of faithfulness.

The biblical reality of God-honoring prayer is radically different. Prayer luchadors are those who know God's heart and will because they richly dwell in His Word, not academically, like the Pharisees who knew Scripture but still missed Messiah (John 5:39–40), but relationally—because the theopneustos (God-breathed) Word of God has quite literally become their life-breath!

This is no metaphorical flourish. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16–17, “All Scripture is God-breathed (theopneustos) and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” The same God who breathed life into Adam’s nostrils in Genesis 2:7—“Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature”—is the One who breathes life into His people through the written Word.

Scripture is not merely a book to study; it is divine revelation. It is the immutable, inerrant, perfect, fully sufficient very breath of God extended to us so that we may know His heart, submit to His will, and walk in all His ways. It is our lifeline to communion with the living God. To pray apart from the Word of God is, at best, to risk praying in ignorance and, at worst, rebellion. As Gamaliel warned in Acts 5:39, when speaking of resisting what may be from God: “If it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!”

When we pray out of alignment with God's Word and are driven by self-interest, cultural fads, or hollow tradition, we invariably find ourselves fighting against God. But when we pray Scripture-fed, Spirit-led prayers, we engage in the very mission of Christ.

Consider:

• Hannah (1 Samuel 1): barren, broken, and bitter in spirit for the spiritual apostasy of Israel. Her fervent prayer brought forth a prophet who advanced God's kingdom.

• Daniel (Daniel 6, 9): faithful in prayer even under the threat of death. He granted divine insight into the future of God's plans for the nations.

• Anna (Luke 2:36–38): widowed and elderly, but never left the temple, praying and fasting for the redemption of Israel.

• The unnamed church intercessors (Acts 4:23-31) prayed for boldness to speak the WORD, and (Acts 12:5) prayed Peter out of prison.

• Epaphroditus (Philippians 2:25–30): risking his life in service to the Gospel, almost dying, but deeply burdened for the church.

None of them were famous. None wrote bestsellers. None went viral. But heaven heard their mission-advancing, God-honoring kingdom prayers.

We don’t need more influencers in our churches. We need more intercessors.

We don’t need more performers in our churches. We need more prayer warriors.

We don’t need more entertainment in our churches. We need more Epaphrases.

So, saints, Church—let us be Prayer Luchadors. Not for recognition. Not for comfort. But for Christ.

Let Scripture, the very breath of God, inform, shape, and guide our prayers as a fragrant aroma into the throne room of heaven, where Christ Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, constantly interceeding for us! Let the Word of God dwell richly in us and be the spiritual oxygen in our lungs! Let that sacred space behind closed doors be our arenas and battlefields. Let our lives be marked not by applause but by agony—the kind of agony that emerges from our wrestling in prayer for the maturity, assurance, effectiveness, and perseverance of all the saints.

Let's join the ranks of the mostly faceless, nameless, faithful ones. Wrestle for your family and neighbors, for the church, for the lost, deluded, and disillusioned. Let us wrestle for the glory of God! "Your kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven!"

The Gospel advances not by human might, ingenuity, cunning, or power, but by the Spirit of God through the persistent prayers of His people. Let us be Prayer Luchadors!

Blessings & love,

Kevin M. Kelley

Senior Pastor

Big Island Christian Church