Romans 1:9
For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers,
As Paul is about to tell the Romans how much he prays for them, he appeals to God as a witness to the truth of his statement. He wanted them to know that he wasn’t just saying that he prays for them. How often have we flipantly told people that we would pray for them and then didn’t? Are we faithful enough in our prayers that we are willing to call upon God as our witness?
Paul serves God with his spirit as well as his body. It is easy to get caught up in external service and neglect the spiritual. As important as service we perform with our body is, the service we perform with our spirit is much more important. “For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms.” (Eph. 6:12, NLT) Prayer is an entirely spiritual service, no body is required.
Paul prays for the Romans all the time. He lived in a continuous state of prayer and commanded the Thessalonians to do the same, “pray without ceasing.” (1 Thess. 5:17) To do this, prayer has to be more simple and basic than we generally think. Prayer is simply talking to God. He lives inside us and we should always be talking to Him. One topic we should talk to Him about every day is the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Just as Paul did with the Romans, we should “without ceasing … make mention of [them] always in [our] prayers.”
