Col 4:3-4 (NIV) And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.
NOTE: I do appreciate prayer requests that are in the scripture, because they tend to be so much different than the modern day prayer request. Although in defense of modern day prayer request, elsewhere in scripture, it says, "ask anything." So, I must not be too harsh on my day and age. Still, the prayer requests in the scripture are much more spiritual and mission focused. They are not about self, but much bigger in scope. They are focused on opportunities to share the message. Someone once said that we are to pray for boldness, not opportunities, but here Paul asks prayer for open doors. He also prays for clarity of the message. Of course the message itself never changes, but people's needs and understanding are different. We need to think through how to communicate in a way that captures their attention and also fully communicates the essential aspects of the gospel -- that is, our sin and rebellion from God, our inability to save ourselves, Jesus death that fully paid the penalty for our sin, our need to put our faith in Christ's work and to repent of our sin. Repentance captures the emotion or heart aspect of our salvation. It is not a work, Jesus did the work, but repentance shows that our heart is involved with our mind (understanding what Jesus did), and our will (asking Jesus to come into our life and be our savior).
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