If you want to know how to pray for others, Paul gives us a powerful pattern in Ephesians 1:15–24: pray that they would know God more deeply, know the hope God has called them to, and know the power of God at work in them. These are bigger prayers than simply asking God to change someone's circumstances. They are prayers for who a person is becoming, what they are living towards, and how God's power is at work in their lives.
Why pray for other people?
What are some of the things you hope for in life? What would you like to see happen in your lifetime?
Now think about the people around you. What are their hopes? What do you want to see happen in the lives of your friends, family members, colleagues, neighbours and fellow Christians?
Most of us are not naturally very curious about other people's hopes. Life is busy enough dealing with our own problems. We have our own pressures, relationships, responsibilities, disappointments and plans. It can be difficult to find the emotional space to stop and ask what someone else really needs.
But Christianity gives us somewhere to take those hopes. When we see something good that we want for another person, we do not have to leave it as a vague wish. We can bring it to God.
That is prayer.
Prayer is one of the remarkable privileges of following Jesus. We bring the people we love, the situations that concern us and the hopes we have for others to a God who hears us and acts.
Paul does exactly this in Ephesians 1. He has heard about the faith of the Christians in Ephesus and their love for other Christians, and his response is to pray for them. But notice what he prays for.
He does not simply pray that their problems would disappear. He does not ask God to make their lives comfortable. He does not even begin with their circumstances.
Instead, Paul prays for their relationship with God, their understanding of the future God has promised, and their experience of God's power.
That gives us a remarkably helpful pattern for learning how to pray for others.
Pray that they would know God
Paul says that he keeps asking God to give these Christians the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they may know God better (Ephesians 1:17).
Knowing God is the foundation of everything else.
There is a difference between knowing about someone and knowing them personally. You can know facts about a person without having any meaningful relationship with them. You can know where they grew up, what they do for work and what their favourite football team is without actually knowing them.
The same is true of God.
Christian faith is not simply collecting information about God. It is coming to know God himself.
That is why knowing God is not something we eventually "get over". It is foundational. If you build a house, you do not finish the foundations and then decide that foundations are no longer important. Everything else depends upon them.
The same is true spiritually. The more we know God, the more we understand who he is, what he is like and how he calls us to live.
And this gives us our first way to pray for someone.
Pray that they would know God.
If you are praying for your spouse, pray that they would know God more deeply. If you are praying for your children, pray that they would know God. If you are praying for a friend who is struggling, pray that they would know God in the middle of that struggle. If you are praying for someone who does not yet believe in Jesus, pray that they would come to know him.
These are expansive prayers.
They get beneath the surface of someone's circumstances and ask God to do something deeper.
Knowing God's voice
How do we come to know God?
Part of the answer is learning to listen to him.
Jesus describes his followers as people who recognise his voice. That means knowing God's voice is not some strange or mystical experience reserved for a few unusually spiritual Christians. It is part of what it means to have a relationship with Jesus.
And one of the primary ways we learn to recognise God's voice is through God's Word.
If you rarely listen to someone, it becomes difficult to recognise their voice. If you hear someone regularly, you become familiar with the way they speak. You recognise their tone, their character and the things they are likely to say.
The same principle applies to Scripture. As we regularly read the Bible, we become more familiar with God's character and his ways.
That matters because there are plenty of other voices competing for our attention.
Some voices encourage us. Others accuse us. Some give us hope. Others produce despair. Some lead us towards freedom. Others push us towards fear and shame.
Not every thought that enters our minds deserves to be treated as God's voice.
This is one reason regular Bible reading matters so much. We learn to distinguish God's character from the voices that compete with it.
Redeemer has explored this theme in The Lift Model of the Heart, which looks at how God's Word needs to engage not just our thoughts but our hearts. We are not simply trying to acquire more information. We want God's truth to reach into the centre of our lives and transform us.
So when you pray for someone, do not only pray that their circumstances would change.
Pray that they would know God.
Pray that they would recognise his voice.
Pray that they would become increasingly familiar with his character.
Pray that God's Spirit would give them wisdom and revelation so that they would know him better.
Pray that they would know hope
Paul's prayer moves from knowing God to knowing "the hope to which he has called you" (Ephesians 1:18).
Knowing God is about the present. Hope is about the future.
Christian hope is not simply positive thinking. It is not telling yourself that everything will probably work out somehow. Christian hope is confidence in what God has promised to do.
That makes a huge difference.
We put our hope in things all the time.
We put hope in our careers. We work hard because we expect our work to produce something. We turn up, develop skills, take responsibility and invest time because we believe there is a future we are working towards.
We put hope in friendships and family. We call people, make time for them, show up when life is difficult and invest in relationships because we believe those relationships matter.
Our actions are always shaped by what we believe is coming.
Paul wants Christians to understand that they have been called to a much bigger hope.
God's future is one in which everything is brought together under Christ. The brokenness of this world will not have the final word. God's purposes will not ultimately be defeated. Jesus will not remain opposed by competing powers forever.
There is an inheritance waiting for God's people, described by Paul as glorious and rich.
And the remarkable thing is that Christians have already been given the Holy Spirit as a foretaste and guarantee of what is still to come.
Our future is not an escape from reality. It is the restoration of reality.
The hope of the Christian is that one day everything will be as it ought to be.
There will be no more death, mourning or tears. Everything that is currently broken will ultimately be made new. God's people will know him fully and live in his presence.
That is the hope we should pray other people would know.
Hope changes how we live today
Future hope is not an excuse to ignore the present.
The opposite is true.
Knowing where we are going changes how we live now.
If you know the destination, it affects the direction you travel. If you know what you are working towards, it changes the decisions you make along the way.
The same is true of Christian hope.
If we know that our future is with God, that changes how we think about our careers, our money, our relationships, our time, our homes, our hobbies and our ambitions.
We do not have to squeeze everything we can out of this life because we know this life is not all there is.
We can work faithfully without making work our identity.
We can love people deeply without demanding that they meet every need we have.
We can use money generously because our security does not ultimately depend on accumulating more.
We can endure suffering because suffering is not the final chapter.
We can take risks for God's kingdom because our future is secure in him.
That is why praying for someone's hope is such a powerful thing to do.
You are not merely asking God to make them feel more optimistic. You are asking God to give them a deep awareness of the future he has promised and to let that future reshape the way they live today.
Redeemer has explored this kind of Christian hope in What Does Jesus Offer?, which looks at Jesus' promise of a new world and what that future means for the way we live now.
And if you are struggling to hold onto hope yourself, What Is the Point of Suffering? A Biblical Answer explores why Christian hope is not vague optimism but is grounded in the God who raised Jesus from the dead.
So when you pray for someone, ask God to open "the eyes of their heart" so they can see this hope more clearly.
Pray that they would know God's power
Paul's prayer then gets even bigger.
He prays that these Christians would know "his incomparably great power for us who believe" (Ephesians 1:19).
God does not simply want his people to know about his power. He wants them to know it at work.
And Paul immediately explains what kind of power he means. It is the power God demonstrated when he raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him above every other authority and power.
This is resurrection power.
Christianity is not simply a collection of ideas that we are supposed to believe and then implement through our own strength. At the centre of Christian faith is a historical claim: Jesus died and God raised him from the dead. If Jesus was not raised, then Christian hope ultimately collapses. Prayer becomes little more than a form of mindfulness. The Christian life becomes an attempt to live by good ideas.
But if Jesus really rose from the dead, everything changes. The resurrection tells us that the power of God is greater than death.
Paul wants Christians to understand that this same resurrection power is at work for God's people.
That does not mean Christians become superhuman. It does not mean that God gives us the ability to control every circumstance or make every problem disappear. It means that our lives are no longer dependent entirely upon our own strength.
Jesus is above every power
Paul spends several verses emphasising just how great Jesus' authority is. Jesus has been raised and exalted above every rule, authority, power and dominion. He is above every name that can be named, not only in the present age but also in the age to come.
Think about the things that feel powerful in your life.
Perhaps it is your employer. Perhaps it is money. Perhaps it is the expectations of other people. Perhaps it is a diagnosis, a difficult relationship, a political situation, a cultural pressure, a personal failure or something else that seems to have enormous influence over your future.
None of these things sits above Jesus.
Paul's point is not that these things are imaginary or that life is easy. His point is that they are not ultimate.
Jesus is.
That changes how we pray for other people. When you pray for someone who feels powerless, you are not praying to a powerless God. When you pray for someone who is afraid, you are not praying to someone who is intimidated by the things that frighten them. When you pray for someone who feels trapped, you are bringing their situation before the one who has been exalted above every power.
So pray that they would know God's power. Pray that they would know that they are not alone. Pray that they would have courage to trust God. Pray that they would have strength to obey him. Pray that they would be willing to take faithful risks. Pray that they would experience God's presence in circumstances they cannot control.
Prayer changes how we love people
There is something beautiful about the fact that Paul is praying all of this for other people.
He is not simply giving them a spiritual checklist.
He wants them to know God. He wants them to know hope. He wants them to know power.
In other words, Paul has an expansive vision for the people he loves. That is what love does.
Love wants more for someone than immediate comfort.
If you love someone, you care about what happens to them today, but you also care about who they are becoming.
You want your friend to know God. You want your child to have a deep and resilient hope. You want your spouse to know God's presence and power. You want your colleague to discover that their identity is bigger than their job. You want your neighbour to experience the life Jesus offers. You want your fellow Christian to grow in faith rather than simply have an easier week.
This is one of the ways prayer makes us better friends, family members, colleagues, neighbours and church members. Prayer expands our vision for other people.
Instead of simply asking, "How can this person's situation improve?", we begin asking, "God, what do you want this person to know about you?"
That is a much bigger prayer.
Start praying bigger prayers
So where does your prayer life stop? Perhaps you regularly pray about your own circumstances. Perhaps you pray for other people's circumstances. Perhaps you pray for people's health, jobs, relationships, finances and decisions.
Those are good things to pray about, but Ephesians 1 invites us to move further: what if you prayed for someone's relationship with God? What if you prayed that they would understand the hope God has given them? What if you prayed that their spiritual eyes would be opened to see that hope? What if you prayed that they would know the resurrection power of Jesus at work in their lives?
These are not small prayers. And they are not prayers reserved for pastors or particularly spiritual people. They are prayers ordinary Christians can pray for ordinary people.
You can pray them while driving, on a walk, before meeting a friend for coffee, while putting your children to bed, when someone comes to mind unexpectedly, with your missional community.
You can pray them for your church.
You can pray them for people who do not yet follow Jesus.
And something else happens as we do this.
God changes us too.
As we pray for someone to know God, we are reminded that we need to know God.
As we pray for someone to know hope, we remember the hope we have been given.
As we pray for someone to know resurrection power, we are reminded that we are not meant to live entirely in our own strength.
We cannot give what we do not have.
That does not mean we have to become perfect before we can pray for other people. It means that these prayers invite us to examine our own lives as well.
Do you know God?
Do you know the hope he has called you to?
Do you live each day in light of the resurrection power of Jesus?
The answer to those questions is not meant to produce shame. It is an invitation.
Come to Jesus.
Know him.
Know his hope.
Know his power.
And then begin praying that other people would know the same.
If you are exploring what this kind of Christian community looks like, you can find out more about Redeemer Church Manchester, a church in Manchester. We believe the church is not simply a Sunday event but a people who are learning to follow Jesus together.
A simple way to pray for someone today
Think of one person. Perhaps it is someone you love. Perhaps it is someone you find difficult. Perhaps it is someone who is struggling. Perhaps it is someone who does not yet believe in Jesus.
Now pray three simple prayers.
"God, help them to know you."
"God, help them to know the hope you have called them to."
"God, help them to know your resurrection power at work in their lives."
You do not need impressive words. You do not need to pray for an hour. You simply need to bring someone before God and ask him to do what only he can do. That is what Paul does in Ephesians 1.
And it gives us a simple pattern for how to pray for others: know God, know hope, know power.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should Christians pray for other people?
Christians can pray for other people by asking God to work in their whole lives, not simply to change their circumstances. Ephesians 1:15–24 gives three especially helpful areas to pray about: that people would know God more deeply, understand the hope God has called them to, and experience the power of God at work in their lives.
What should I pray for someone who is struggling?
You can certainly pray about the particular circumstances they are facing, but you can also pray for what God might be doing in them through those circumstances. Pray that they would know God's presence, trust his character, see the hope he offers, and experience his strength when their own strength is limited.
How can I pray for someone who does not believe in Jesus?
You can pray that they would come to know God personally and that the "eyes of their heart" would be opened to see who Jesus is and what he offers. You can also pray for opportunities to have honest conversations about faith and for wisdom to love them well without putting pressure on them.
Why does Paul pray for people to know God rather than simply asking God to help them?
Paul does pray about circumstances elsewhere in Scripture, but Ephesians 1 shows the importance of going deeper. Circumstances matter, but knowing God changes how we understand and respond to everything else. Paul's prayer is ultimately about a person's relationship with God, their future hope and their experience of God's power.
What does Christian hope mean?
Christian hope is confidence in what God has promised to do. It looks forward to the renewal of all things under Christ and the final defeat of death and brokenness. Because this future is secure in God's promises, Christian hope is intended to shape the way we live today.
What does it mean to know God's power?
In Ephesians 1, Paul connects God's power with the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus. Knowing God's power does not mean having control over circumstances. It means learning to live with confidence that God's power is greater than the forces that oppose him and that his resurrection life is at work in his people.
Do I need to be a Christian to pray for someone?
You do not need to be an expert in Christianity or know special words in order to pray. Christian prayer is simply bringing yourself and other people honestly before God. If you are exploring Christianity, prayer can be one of the simplest ways to begin seeking God.
How often should I pray for other people?
There is no required amount of time. You can develop a regular pattern of praying for particular people, perhaps each day or several times a week, while also praying spontaneously when someone comes to mind. What matters is developing a habit of bringing other people before God rather than waiting until you have the perfect words.
Where can I learn more about prayer and Christianity?
If you would like to explore Christianity further, Redeemer Church Manchester, a church in Manchester, provides opportunities to learn about Jesus, read the Bible and explore questions about faith. You can also explore Redeemer's articles and resources on prayer, Scripture, hope and following Jesus.