Praying for our Young People
Fall 2024
This magazine includes reports of the annual Youth Camp and the mission team to Jamaica, which give us an insight into the young people that God has given to our denomination. There is also coverage of the International Congress held in July. The theme during those meetings was “Go forward.” There is the obvious recognition that the work of God should never become stagnant and that we long for God to touch the future generations under our care. With this in mind, it is common to hear ministers pray for the young people in our churches. Such prayers are echoed in the pews. But what specifically are we praying that God would do in and through our young people?
In 2 Chronicles 34 we see what God can do. Josiah is one of the most famous and faithful young people recorded in the Bible. Age is a factor in the sacred record. He began to reign aged eight years old. Verse three would suggest he was converted around the age of fifteen or sixteen and really got down to the work God had for him around nineteen or twenty. The inspired summary records him doing that which was right in the sight of the Lord like David his forefather. He didn’t swerve off course. The main criterion of judgment for the Kings was based on what they did with idolatry. Josiah went to town, tearing down idols here, there, and everywhere (2 Chronicles 34:4–7). He also repaired the house of the Lord that had been neglected (v 8).
All young people are not called to be Josiahs. Afterall, there was only one king. But considering his life from another angle, we see a young man who was humble under the Word of God, seeking to live according to that Word. He allowed it to impact every part of his life, ensuring that his life influenced and impacted others for good (2 Chronicles 34:29–32). He lived under God and for God. His life furnishes us with scope for prayers on behalf of the young people around us.
Pray for young people to be given to prayer.
Josiah “began to seek the Lord” in his teens. A life seeking God in the work of God begins in the heart. Like Saul of Tarsus, the evidence of Josiah’s new heart was his seeking God in prayer (Acts 9:11). The first breath of prayer in a new heart calls upon God for mercy in a spirit of repentance (Isaiah 55:6–7). But that is not the end of seeking God, but the beginning. The word “began” implies a continuation of the act. Josiah life was marked by seeking the Lord. He obeyed the command, “Seek the LORD, and his strength: seek his face evermore” (Psalm 105:4).
We need our young people to be prayer warriors in private and public. The Free Presbyterian Church was born in prayer. Such prayer warriors are made by God—saved by grace and sanctified by His Spirit. Pray for this work in young people today.
Pray for young people to be committed to living according to God’s precepts.
Josiah did right in the Lord’s sight. He was a king with duties peculiar to a king. We might describe his work as a work of reformation. He removed idols and he repaired the Lord’s house. His actions were biblical and thorough. “And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book” (2 Chronicles 34:31).
Our prayers must be that young people would thoroughly commit themselves to making the Bible the rule over every area of life. There can be no area of life untouched and no command ignored. Thorough, biblical Christian living involves putting off sin and putting on Christ (Colossians 3:5, 12–13). Like Josiah, young people need tender and humble hearts (2 Chronicles 34:27). But young people can make mistakes and we can lack patience with them, forgetting that they need to grow in grace and maturity. Our prayers are beneficial when we pray that God would work in them, giving them a love for His law and granting them the power to be more like Christ.
Pray for young people to be consecrated unto the right purpose.
These prayers are connected. To what end do we pray for young people to seek and obey the Lord? We can’t afford to get this wrong! Josiah did not seek personal popularity or political acclaim. His actions were very likely unpopular in a climate of idolatry—yet he persisted. His changes rebuked past sin as he moved the people to give sacrificially for the Lord’s cause.
A right purpose motivated the young king to faithfulness. His desire was to do what was right in the sight of God (2 Chronicles 34:2). Pray for young people who make that their chief ambition. Every generation faces the pressure to conform to the world (Romans 12:2). A principled purpose to do only that which pleases the Lord is a powerful means to resist the temptation to compromise and conform. It’s often an easy option to do what pleases those whom you see, forgetting to do that which pleases the One who sees you.
Paul’s prayer for the Colossians should be our prayer for the next generation. “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10).
Pray for our young people to have the heart of Josiah of whom the Lord said, “Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God…and did weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the LORD” (2 Chronicles 34:27).
Rev. Stephen Pollock | Editor