Can I pray for you in any way?
Send
any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives.
Colossians 1:9
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Prayer is vital to our Christian spiritual health and it’s tied to the following axiom I have long held to regarding communication and relationship:
Communication is the lifeblood of relationship.
It’s true, right?
If you are in a relationship with someone and either you, the other person, or both of you stop communicating with one another, that relationship will slowly begin to die away. I’ve seen this happen in my life many times and I’m sure you probably have too.
This is why we can’t afford to not pray as Christians. Prayer is our one way we can communicate personally and intimately with our Lord who, unlike us, is always ready and available. In other words, when communication problems happen between the Lord and His believers, the problem is always on the believer’s side.
Given this truth, that many Christian believers don’t pray enough, other brothers and sisters in Christ often step into the gap and pray for them, something called intercessory prayer. If you pray and pray regularly as you should, then you are very familiar with lifting others up before the Lord and asking for Him to act in their lives. You also probably used to letting others know that you are praying for them.
As we look at today’s verse and our continued study of Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae, we find him letting the Colossian believers know that he and others are interceding for them in prayer. Look again at his words here from chapter 1, verse 9:
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives.
Now, you may remember a couple things about Paul and the background circumstances involved with this letter.
First, he was incarcerated in a Rome. He wasn’t free to travel to Colossae to speak with the Christians there. But this didn’t mean that he was powerless in caring for them. Not even close.
Paul knew the power of prayer and he had prayed for the believers in Colossae without ceasing. He knew he was limited in what he could do but he also knew his prayers were lifted up to a God who knew no limits, a God through which all things were possible.
And so Paul and his associates prayed continually for the Colossian Christians, even though they, outside of Epaphras, had never even met anyone in the church there. That’s right. The Colossian church was one of only a few Christian churches that Paul had not personally planted and yet, he cared deeply for the believers in Colossae and their success for the cause of Christ.
So Paul and his fellow missionaries were praying for the Colossian Christians but what was he praying for?
He tells us (and them) in the latter part of this verse.
We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives.
Friends, Paul gives us something that we should always pray for others as we lift them up to the Lord. The Jesus believers in Colossae were already saved through their belief in Christ after receiving the Gospel but Paul was concerned about their spiritual growth and so he prayed for it to happen. He asked God to fill the Colossian Christians “with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives”.
If the Colossian believers were going to grow in their Christian faith, they would need to continue to follow the will of the very God who led them to their salvation, the God who sent the Holy Spirit to bring all wisdom and understanding to His followers.
This is the same God we serve today and like Paul, we should be praying over all Christian believers we know, asking for the Lord to help them grow in their knowledge of His will while providing wisdom and understanding through the Spirit.
Tomorrow, we will look at outcomes we should hope for after praying for these things.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment