12 Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. 13 I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis. 14 Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings. (Colossians 4:12-14)
The Lord used Epaphras to start the church at Colossae. Here in v.12 Paul tells us Epaphras wrestled in prayer for the Colossian believers. Prayer is a tremendous gift for accessing God's power. To wrestle in prayer is to agonize in conversation with God. No wonder God built His church in Colossae through this man of prayer.
The Greek word the Apostle uses for wrestle is "agōnizomenos' meaning to compete or to strive as in competition. This is no fly by night prayer. No, this is anguishing prayer stimulated by a deep love that is willing to go to the mat for someone. Epaphras was like Jacob in Genesis 32:26 where Jacob prayed: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” This is the kind of fervency and persistence that needs to characterize our prayers. Jacob was saying, “You can’t make it rough enough for me to stop. I am holding on until You fulfill Your promises.”
The Apostle Paul also mentions Luke. In 2 Timothy, Paul writes, "Only Luke is with me." All the others had left, but Luke remained to the end. To this humble man, we owe both the gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.
In contrast, Demas is mentioned. He too was from Thessalonica and probably was part of that original band of Paul's disciples. But now, when Paul is in prison and all his disciples are in danger of being arrested, Demas is buckles under the pressure.
Paul says nothing good or bad about him in this letter, but later, in his letter to Timothy, he writes, "Demas has forsaken me having loved this present age, and has gone back to Thessalonica." This young man was one of Paul's closest friends left because he loved the the world more. And, as a result, he abandoned his faith.
Perhaps Demas' problem began with a lack of prayer. One can get so involved in the work of the ministry that he forgets from where the power comes.
In 1865, William Booth, a 36-year-old Englishman founded the Salvation Army, with the intent to evangelize the poor, and literally changed his society with the Salvation message of Christ. He once said, “You must pray with your might... That does not mean saying your prayers, or sitting gazing about in church or chapel, with eyes wide open, while someone else says them for you. It means fervent, effectual, untiring wrestling with God. It means that grappling with Omnipotence, that clinging to Him, following Him about, so to speak, day and night, as the widow did to the unjust judge, with agonizing pleadings and arguments and entreaties, until the answer comes and the end is gained.”
