A Scriptural-Spiritual Lens for Resolve in 2022 - Part Seventeen
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Introduction
Introduction
Prayer, in many ways, is the supreme expression of our faith in God. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
PRAY
2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. 3 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. 5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
We resolve to depend on God
We resolve to depend on God
Continue steadfastly in prayer - This is a command. This is not a suggestion. Paul is calling the Colossians to obey God by calling on God. He is telling them they must pray. The should pray. They ought to pray. They need to pray. They should want to pray.
By way of reminder, when God commands his people to do something he is not randomly, angrily, or tyranically telling them to do something. He as the all-wise God is giving his children the path which brings him the most glory and does them the most good.
What is prayer? Prayer is coming before God and to God with desire for communion. You are saying to God that I need a relationship with you. It involves communicating with God. It includes adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication. It is a cry of a child to his or her heavenly Father. It is to come before Yahweh, the triune God in praise and fellowship. It is not a spiritual luxury. It is the breathing of the Christian believer. It is as vital spiritually as physical breathing is to our natural life. It must be continual as opposed to casual.
“Seeking the Lord in prayer implies that God himself is the good desired and sought after. That the blessings pursued are God’s gracious presence, the blessed manifestations of him, union with him, interaction with him, and in short God’s manifestations of himself by his Holy Spirit.” Jonathan Edwards
9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
In this place he is telling them to persist in the activity of prayer. He is telling them to firm and strong in this most necessary activity. The activity of prayer is one of self-realization. One knows that life is impossible to live without the help and fellowship of the almighty God. The consistency of prayer should correspond to the consistency of our need for God.
Be devoted to prayer, continue earnestly in prayer, devote yourselves to prayer
1 And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
How much more should we who have a God who is attentive and possesses a benevolent disposition toward us prayer in comparison to this women who ask from a judge who was essentially and actively evil?
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
We resolve to be resolved in coming to God
We resolve to be resolved in coming to God
Being watchful in it - Be alert, be aware, be awake, be vigilant.
Why does Paul include this admonition to the church at Colosse?
37 And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? 38 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 39 And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. 41 And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”
There is a natural and spiritual weakness residing in us even as believers. We have a tendency to drift into drowsiness. We are inclined to be apt in apathy. We are often lulled into laziness. Therefore, Paul gives the reminder and description of how believers are to pray. The call is to be consistently alert in the matter of prayer.
5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
What is your mind set? If we had a real sense of what we are up against, we would prayer more.
We resolve to be grateful as we approach God
We resolve to be grateful as we approach God
With thanksgiving - Paul includes gratitude and appreciation as an essential and necessary ingredient to prayer and dependence on God.
There’s access to God through redemption in Christ. God hears our prayers, He answers our prayers according to his wisdom, He answers above our asking, God has given us others with which to pray. This letter is written not an individual, but to a community of believers. This is something we miss in our highly individualized culture and society. God is calling a community that will come together and prayer steadfastly. They will seek the face of God together.
9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Practical Application
Practical Application
Know the power of prayer, believe in the power of prayer, experience the power of prayer.
J.C. Ryle - There are wonderful examples in the Scripture of the power of prayer. Nothing seems to be too great, too hard, or too difficult for prayer to do. It has obtained things that seemed impossible and out of reach. It has won victories over fire, air earth, and water. Prayer opened up the Red Sea . Prayer brought water from the rock and bread from heaven. Prayer made the sun stand still. Prayer brought fire from the sky on Elijah's sacrifice. Prayer turned the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. Prayer overthrew the army of Sennacherib. Well might Mary Queen of Scots say, "I fear John Knox's prayers more than an army of ten thousand men." Prayer has healed the sick. Prayer has raised the dead. Prayer has procured the conversion of souls. "The child of many prayers," said and old Christian to Augustine's mother, "shall never perish." Prayer, pains, and faith can do anything. Nothing seems impossible when a person has the spirit of adoption. "Let me alone," is the remarkable saying of God to Moses when Moses was about to intercede for the children of Israel. Exodus 32:10. So long as Abraham asked mercy for Sodom, the Lord went on giving. He never ceased to give until Abraham ceased to pray. Think of this. Is this not an encouragement?
Ask the Lord Jesus to instruct your prayer life.
1 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”
God will not answer the prayers will refuse to pray or those you pray in selfishness.
2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
Move toward patterns of prayer.
1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. 2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples.
Plan times to pray alone.
6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Plan times of prayer in family life.
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Plan time of prayer with the body of Christ. Spurgeon, “As I was sitting for a little while and thinking over this text I thought of the accumulated love of God which there is in a prayer-meeting, because God loves every one of his children. There is so much love for one, and here is another, and there is so much love for him, and then, if God’s love to one of his people is a reason for answering his requests, if there are ten present, there is ten times the reason; and if there is a thousand present then surely there must be a thousand times the force of love to move our Heavenly Father to grant the accumulated desires of the assembly.”
Plan to be spontaneous in prayer in the course of your life.
17 pray without ceasing,