Or take the two prayers in 1 Thessalonians (iii. 12, 13, and v. 23). The one: "God so increase your love to one another, that He may stablish your _hearts unblameable in holiness_." The other: "God _sanctify you wholly_, and preserve you blameless." The very words are so high that we hardly understand, still less believe, still less experience what they mean. Paul so lived in the heavenly world, he was so at home in the holiness and omnipotence of God and His love, that such prayers were the natural expression of what he knew God could and would do. "God stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness," "God sanctify you wholly"--the man who believes in these things and desires them, will pray for them for others. The prayers are all a proof that he seeks for them the very life of heaven upon earth. No wonder that he is not tempted to trust in any human means, but looks for it from heaven alone. Again, I say, the more we take Paul's prayers as our pattern, and make his desires our own for believers for whom we pray, the more will prayer to the God of heaven become as our daily breath. PAUL'S REQUESTS FOR PRAYER. These are no less instructive than his own prayers for the saints. They prove that he does not count prayer any special prerogative of an apostle; he calls the humblest and simplest believer to claim his right. They prove that he does not think that only the new converts or feeble Christians need prayer; he himself is, as a member of the body, dependent upon his brethren and their prayers. After he had preached the gospel for twenty years, he still asks for prayer that he may speak as he ought to speak. Not once for all, not for a time, but day by day, and that without ceasing, must grace be sought and brought down from heaven for his work. United, continued waiting on God is to Paul the only hope of the Church. With the Holy Spirit a heavenly life, the life of the Lord in heaven, entered the world; nothing but unbroken communication with heaven can keep it up. Listen how he asks for prayer, and with what earnestness--Rom. xv. 30: "_I beseech you_, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye _strive together with me in your prayers_ to God for me; that I may be delivered from them which do not believe in Judaea; and may come unto you with joy by the will of God." How remarkably both prayers were answered: Rom. xv. 5, 6, 13. The remarkable fact that the Roman world-power, which in Pilate with Christ, in Herod with Peter, at Philippi, had proved its antagonism to God's kingdom, all at once becomes Paul's protector, and secures him a safe convoy to Rome, can only be accounted for by these prayers.