Purposeful Praying

Col. 1:9-12

Purposeful praying

Paul is overjoyed at hearing the faith of the believers. Their faith is expressed, demonstrated by their acts of love towards one another. THey are walking in the Spirit and so Paul prays for them. This prayer is an example of praying in the Spirit that others would be walking in the Spirit. This prayer is also part of a larger portion that continues in the section on thanksgiving to the Father for the Son, for deliverance from this world and for acceptance into His kingdom.

But for the time being I only want to unpack this brief prayer.

This prayer is two-pronged:

1. that they would have an thorough understanding of the knowledge of God's will for them.

knowledge= a thorough knowledge that comes from personal involvement and relationship with the object of that knowledge.

understanding= a running together, an agreement, a coming together, thus comprehending.

Thus, initially he prays that they would have a complete knowledge of God's will that comes through wisdom (knowing how to apply the truth) and spiritual understanding a complete comprehension of who God is and what He wants of us.

It is like working for someone and knowing them so that when a job is given you accomplish the task by asking "how would so and so want it done?" then doing it that way.

- learning your spouse and doing what they would like.

-Doing trim work for Josh.

It takes learning God and learning His instructions and being able to wed the two in any issue.

Jesus Modeled how God acts in any given situation so we only have to look to Him to see how he handles temptation, impositions by others, dealing with enemies, His thoughts on marriage, sex, prayer, etc.

That leads to the next logical element in this prayer, not only that we would have a comprehensive understanding of His will, but that we would then act accordingly.

2. that having that understanding they would then live accordingly, v.1-12

That we would walk in a worthy/suitable manner, eph. 4:1; Phil. 1:27. In other words, having an understanding of how we need to live our lives we then live it accordingly. The aim is to please the Lord.

Our motive is to do what pleases Him. it is called God pressure, rather than peer pressure. It is the fear of God. We know by learning what God wants and we do it.

And he shows us what they will look like with four verbal statements:

a. productive, fruitful- by this he means that whatever issue you are dealing with and acting in accord with your full understanding of God's will would then produce what God intended to produce in you as a result of the issue coming into your life. It may be that God is trying to produce more love, or more joy, self control, or gentleness in you.

b. maturity-increasing in the knowledge of God. As we act and learn more of God we mature in godliness. As you and I do what we think God wants we, partly through trial and error, and partly through more study and understanding of His Word, become more fully understanding of God's character, cf. Ps. 77 (Asaph struggled with his apparent disallusionment about God, because of His troubles, but then he chose to remember God's past wonderous works and drew a different conclusion than his first).

As God produces in you the character He wants and as you learn more of God you are then strengthened in the inner man. Eph. 3:16-20.

Metal when it is heated at low temperatures for long periods of time becomes stronger. In a similar manner as God applies pressure/heat to us we become stronger.

c. strengthened- being empowered with all power of God (reference to power of the Holy Spirit) so that:

1)we would be steadfast, endurance, not quit, patience, to bear up under, perseverence in the face of trials.

2)longsuffering - self control in the face of wrongs, not getting sinfully angry when treated wrong.

As we grow in these things, we are able to see the hand of God in all of it and rather than ungrateful and complaining we become thankful.

d. gratitude- a thankful attitude that bears itself out in verbal expressions of thankfulness for what God has done and is doing in our lives.

This, in short is what walking in the Spirit looks like.

Conclusion

This is the kind of purposeful praying that gets results. It is praying with the mind of the Spirit. It is praying in the Spirit.

I encourage you to memorize this prayer, just as you did the Lord's prayer and use it as a model for prayer in your life as you intercede for others, even yourself.