(CREDIT: t-bet via Flickr)

Our church has recently started testing a new, online prayer diary called ‘PrayerMate.’

It enables people to subscribe to prayer points from many, terrific organisations and missionaries.

It also helps us connect with the regular prayer points of our own church.

One benefits is that it gives me a list of people from within our church that I can specifically pray for each week.

But what should I actually pray for each person?

Well, according to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, I could start by thanking God for each person, and particularly, for their faith and their love, as he writes:

“…ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers” (Ephesians 1:15-16)

It’s great to start our prayers by thanking God for how he is working in each person, leading them to grow in their trust in him, and in the outworking of that through the love they have for other Christians.

But after that, Paul prays that they would know God better:

“I keep asking that the God  of our Lord Jesus Christ, the  glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (Ephesians 1:17)

The reason we pray that people would know God better is so that they can enjoy the riches of their relationship with him.

It’s a bit like getting to “know” a friend or a spouse: it’s not so we can pass a knowledge test about them, but it’s so we can grow deeper in our friendship.

So, let’s keep thanking God for each other’s faith and love, and keep asking him to help us know God better.

Jodie.

Young kids love to dress up and pretend to be somebody else.

Whether it’s Elsa or Buzz Lightyear, they love to play another character.

Adults also enjoy pretending to be someone else, often at a costume party or a masquerade ball.

Sometimes we pretend to be someone else on social media.

Even though Facebook requires the use of real names, people don’t always act in a way that matches their real-life persona.

Sometimes this can be a form of social ‘makeup’, where we try to appear our very best when we’re sharing our photos or making comments.

At other times we keep silent about our beliefs and opinions, especially when discussion rages about controversial matters like same-sex marriage.

We can also appear different to the real world when our comments, likes, and shares clash with the person we claim to be at church or in our daily communities.

There’s a constant temptation to have a different ‘face’ when we’re on Facebook.

In his first letter, the Apostle Peter warns Christians to “rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.” (1 Peter 2:1.)

This means that when we’re online we need to avoid hypocrisy by making sure we don’t have a different ‘face’ to our real-life persona.

The person we are when we’re engaging with Facebook needs to be the same person we are when we’re chatting in the real world with friends, family and colleagues.

And the motivation is simple and powerful: we “have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23)

God’s word has given us a radical new life, and we are called to live this life online as well as offline, to God’s glory.

Jodie McNeill

This is an excerpt of Jodie’s upcoming seminar at this year’s MTS Mission Minded Conference called, “Can I be a Christian and on social media at the same time?”