COLOSSIANS 1 - PART 2

If you’ve been in any kind of church group where prayer requests are taken, you know the kinds of requests that are typical.  

Please pray for my aunt who has been diagnosed with cancer. 

Pray for my son and his wife who are having marital problems. 

Pray for my husband to get a job in his field.

Pray for my relationship with my cousin.

Pray for our safety as we travel.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking the Lord for our physical and material needs.  But rarely, if ever, have I been in a meeting where the prayer like the one Paul prays for the Colossians is requested.  His prayer for them is recorded in Colossians, chapter 1, verses 9-12:

Verse 9a: “For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. . .”

How’s that for determination and perseverance borne out of love?   

The Apostle Paul had never been to Colosse.  He had only heard of their faith in the gospel and the love of the Colossians for their fellow believers, but he had never met them.  Nevertheless, since the day he first heard, he had not ceased to pray for them.  So what is it that Paul prays for them?

Verse 9b “. . .asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”

Paul’s prayer for them was not for their physical or material needs, although they undoubtedly had many.  His prayer was for their spiritual needs – that the Lord would fill them with the knowledge of HIS WILL by granting them spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding – something only God could do!

Why did he so faithfully pray this for them?

Verse 10a “And we pray this IN ORDER THAT you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way. . . .”

Why did the Colossian believers need spiritual wisdom and understanding?  So that they might know the Lord’s will, so that they might know what living a life worthy of the Lord looked like in the framework of their everyday lives and live it faithfully. 

No matter how long you have been a Christian, you know that it is not easy to live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way.  It was no different for the Colossians.  They too were living in a world hostile to the gospel.  They too lived and worked among people who didn’t know or love Jesus and had the same temptations to do things the world’s way.  They too were struggling to discern truth from the errors that assailed them, not only from unbelievers, but also from those who claimed to be Christians, whose heresies threatened the church.  

The prayer Paul prayed for them was not only needed for them, it’s needed for US!  The challenges we face today as believers in Jesus might seem more complex than the ones in Colosse (After all, they didn’t have the internet to more seriously muddy the waters!), and maybe they are, which puts us in the place of needing, just as desperately as they did, spiritual wisdom and understanding to know God’s will today too and continue to live lives worthy of the Lord.

But Paul’s prayer didn’t stop there.

Verse 10:b “bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might SO THAT you might have great endurance and patience. . . “

What does this life worthy of the Lord and pleasing to Him look like?  

It is a life of fruit bearing in every good work.  This could mean the "fruit" of Christlike character in our lives as we go about our daily work. Or the "fruit" of telling others about Jesus.

A life of continual growth in the knowledge of who God is.  God gave us the Bible in order that we might know Him, so it stands to reason, growth in that knowledge comes from becoming well acquainted with God's Word. 

It is a life, lived so closely in communion with Jesus, that the power of the Holy Spirit is continually strengthening me from within, bestowing supernatural endurance and patience for resisting life’s temptations in the dailys, as I endeavor to live a life that pleases God.

There is nothing wrong with praying for the physical and material needs of others, but maybe we need to take those prayers a step further, taking into account the spiritual dynamics of what we hope to see the Lord do in answer to our prayers.  Here are some examples:

Please pray for my aunt who has been diagnosed with cancer  Pray that in the midst of this health crisis she might seek You, Jesus, for the Bible says that those who seek You surely find You.

Pray for my son and his wife who are having marital problems.  Teach each of them to submit their lives to You first Lord, as You submitted Your life into the hands of the Father.  For submitting themselves to You is the first step in being able to submit to one another.

Pray for my husband to get a job in his field.  While my husband waits on You, Lord, teach him that You can be trusted to provide for our needs in the meantime for you have promised never to leave or forsake us.  Grow his relationship with You while he waits.

Pray for my relationship with my cousin.  Do such a work of grace in our hearts Lord, that we will each be ready to humble ourselves and seek the other’s forgiveness.

Pray for our safety for our travel.  Help us to be aware wherever we go that we are your ambassadors, Jesus.  Help us to honor you and bless others, every time we stop for gas, engage others in conversation in hotels and restaurants, and remind us give you thanks at the end of our journey.

What a wonderful model for prayer Paul has given us.  What might the Lord do in the lives of our children, our neighbors, our church, if we were to not stop praying Paul’s prayer for them?  Why don’t we try it and see?

More tomorrow. . . .

 

COLOSSIANS 1, part 1

Some time ago now, the Lord led me to begin reading the book of Colossians in the New Testament.  I love this little book.  Written in about 60 AD, it was birthed as a letter from the Apostle Paul, who was in prison in Rome, to the believers in Christ in Colosse in Asia Minor, whom he addresses in verse 2 as “holy and faithful brothers in Christ.”

He says in verse 3, “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love you have for all the saints.”

Who are the people in your life for whom you ALWAYS thank God in your prayers because of their faith in Jesus and their love for others?

The woman who immediately comes to my mind is Liz.  I met her in a night school calligraphy class in what seemed like such a random encounter, but was actually a divine appointment.  A chat on the way out of class identified her as another believer in Jesus, such a godsend to me as a Christian young mom, newly moved into town.  What followed were invitations to bring my girls over for a swim in her pool, introductions to her friends, and ultimately an invitation to a Bible Study Fellowship class in which she had a leadership role.

When I finally did take her up on that invitation, a year had gone by, during which we were each busy with our own lives and had not seen one another.  But when I arrived at the first class the next September, she remembered me!  And she didn’t just have A leadership role, she was THE LEADER of a class of more than one hundred women!  That was the beginning of ten years of relationship with Liz, my friend and mentor, and eventually my partner in leadership as I served as her substitute teacher.

Liz loved me and poured into me the training it would take for me to be a good, but also godly leader.  We talked together about the Lord, what we were learning of Him in the Bible, and how we were applying it to our lives.  Having raised five godly sons, she taught me how to love my husband and children as the Lord would have me do so.  We had sweet times of prayer together, over our leadership responsibilities, and also for our families.  

In every way, Liz modeled godliness and love to me.  She was quiet and an introvert like me, but she had a love for women that overcame any reluctance she may have had about making the first move to get to know them.  She would express kindness to strangers and then invite them to Bible Study Fellowship so that they could get to know Jesus the way she knew Him.

In Paul’s letter to the Colossians he said that the faith and love they exhibited sprung from the hope they had through the gospel, the word of truth, which had come to them and which had implications not only for the present, but for eternity.  In chapter 1, verse 6 he said, “All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.”

The gospel Liz believed and lived bore fruit in my heart and life, as it did in the lives of all those women into whom she poured her life, and who sat under her teaching as the Spirit of God spoke through her in our Bible Study Fellowship class.  

Oh, to have a reputation like the Colossians, and like my friend Liz!  To be known by our faith in Christ and the love we have for others.  That is a worthy aim, one for which I long to be known!

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