The Promises of Prayer in Colossians 1 ~ Episode 125

Praying Colossians 1 freebie

 

Well hey there, hello to ya today. So thankful you are listening to the show today. We’re talking about prayer, which is a hugely important aspect of the Christian life and is incredibly needed in this era in which we find ourselves living. And there is tremendous promise in prayer. The Bible has so much to say about prayer, it’s hard to overemphasize how much hope we have when we stand in prayer.

 

Paul, in his epistle, Colossians chapter one, that’s our text for today. I’m going to read from the NLT and then I am going to pray this passage for you. And in the show notes for this episode I’m going to attach a link for a pdf you can download that has the prayer I’ll be sharing on the episode, so you can access it on your phone or print it out and keep it with your Bible study items, use it in any way that would be a blessing to you and the people that you are praying for. I’ll put that link at the very top of the show notes so that it will be easy to access no matter what app or podcast player you use to listen to podcasts. I’m really honored to be able to pray for you today, and for the 125th episode of The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, this seemed like a super fitting topic to focus on. Let’s jump into this passage.

 

You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, part of the Spark Network, now playing in the Edifi app. This is episode number 125. 

 

So as I look at Colossians chapter one, I am going to read aloud verses three through fourteen, and I’m a quick reader so don’t get too worried that it’s gonna take me a long while to read this. I want to read it and then pray it. So as I read, would you listen closely, with some intentionality, and think about who you can pray these verses for? Who might God want you to stand in prayer for today? 

 

We want to be disciples who in turn make disciples. A key aspect of the Great Commission, right? Prayer is one excellent way to focus on discipleship. Because you and I, we will grow in our walk with the Lord as we pray for others. And those others for whom we are praying are also going to grow in their life. It is actually a WIN-WIN. And we want as many wins as possible, especially when it feels like life kind of kicks us around a bit, knocks us down. Let’s get some wins, you know what I mean. Right here, this is a big WIN-WIN for us. 

 

I’m reading from the New Living Translation. Colossians 1:3-14

 

3 We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, 5 which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.

6 This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.

7 You learned about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker. He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is helping us on your behalf.[b] 8 He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.

9 So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.

11 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy,[c] 12 always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. 13 For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, 14 who purchased our freedom[d] and forgave our sins.

 

Okay, this is quite a passage. Really so much here for us to believe God for in prayer.

 

Paul saying that they always pray for the recipients of this letter, can you even imagine what comfort that brought them? You know, when we pray for others, in a committed kind of way in particular, it really has an impact on them. It shores them up, it can steady them where they may not quite be feeling their sea legs ya know, kind of shaky and quaky. It is so good to know that we are not alone and somebody who loves Jesus is praying for us on the regular. It’s a really big deal, and my personal desire is honestly that we all have somebody or several somebodies who pray for us. It’s part of being in the body of Christ, and I really would love to see us get all sorts of fired up about praying for one another. What might change if we really leaned into that? Uh, yeah I actually think everything could change.

 

And when you pray for others, give thanks to the Lord as you pray. Like, the ability to pray and have our prayers heard by God is huge, so thank Him. And thank Him for your church body, thank Him for your praying friends and family, thank Him for all the things really. I could go on and on about what we should be thankful for. 

 

Verse 4 - Paul is thankful for their faith in Jesus and their love for God’s people. Can the same be said of us? Does anybody see evidence of my faith in Jesus? Is it apparent that I love God’s people? I hope so. And does my love and my faith stem from my confident hope of what is coming for me in the future. Confident. Key word in this passage. Confident hope does not sound like, “Gee I sure hope so.” In Revelation, in His letters to the churches, Jesus said they’d forgotten their first love. When we remember what it was like when we first really got it, what this relationship with Jesus was really all about, man what a moment. Did we have an expectation of what would come in the next life back then? Yes indeed. That can still be our expectation and the source of our hope. God has things reserved for us in heaven. Isn’t that exciting? Hang on to that first love. Jesus is always, always worth it, my friend.

 

Let’s also pray that the Good News will continue to spread around the world. I have a shirt that says “Make Heaven Crowded” and I’ll be honest, I have some shirts that remind me to pray (and a lock screen for my phone that I created to remind me to pray), a hoodie that reminds me that making disciples and being a good disciple myself, those things matter. I have a shirt to remind me that Esther 4:14 is true, and one to remind me that the work I do in my writing and podcasting, it needs to be handled with care, if you will. Like not flippant, but really focused and prayed up as I do the things I do. Make heaven crowded - three words that might be kind of cheesy in the way that only Christian tshirts can at times be cheesy. But it’s important to me. I wear that shirt when I’m writing, when I’m recording audio content like this podcast. It’s for me, to remind me of something really important. People matter. And where they spend eternity, that matters to Jesus and so it should matter to me. 

 

Now I also have a shirt that mentions it being too people-y outside and a sweatshirt that says homebody. I’m telling you, if you know you know. I love people, but the way God made me, I don’t refuel or recharge with all the peoples. I need to have time alone, and you know what, that’s the time I use to write, to craft out podcast content, to work on things for my next prayer retreat in my private Facebook group. To pray for dozens of people (and I have a prayer list with dozens of names on it) If God had not wired me to be okay, to even be in my sweet spot, without loads of people around me all the time, I don’t know that I could get done the things I do. So, how God wired you is part of how He will accomplish the good works He planned for you to be doing. Don’t get annoyed by the gift (cuz sometimes that’s a shady way of being annoyed at the gift giver). Pray and ask how this gifting fits in with how He made you and His good works that He prepared in advance for you to do. It’s really that simple. I used to think I was a really cruddy Christian because I got worn out by too much people-y stuff. Now, I understand it so much better because I prayed about it and the Lord showed me some stuff. He’ll show us some stuff if we pray and talk to Him about whatever it is we need to talk about.

 

This Good News about Jesus is bearing fruit everywhere and it is doing that by changing lives. Look, I’ve said it before and this here today won’t be the last time I say this. The Word of God is life changing. God is in the life changing business. So, why are we so surprised when a life is changed by the Lord? Why should that surprise us? It’s His way, so we should expect to see lives changed all the time. And hey, why shouldn't one of those lives be your life? You cannot possibly give me a good reason why not you. Why not you? Let God change your life and let your changed life bear fruit. 

 

In verse 7 Paul mentions the person who told them the Good News. We are coworkers with every other Chrsitian who is sharing the Good News of Jesus. It’s not a contest or a competition. We’re working toward the same goal. Be a faithful servant of Jesus, yourself personally, and pray for others to be the same. And then, don’t let competition get in there. God’s got a crown for you and He’s got a crown for them. No need to compete because what are you competing for? You can’t obtain their crown and they can’t somehow work really really hard and get your crown in place of their own. Let’s pray for one another, and for the Kingdom to advance and take more and more ground. And let’s show that the Holy Spirit really has given us love for one another.

 

Now, verse 9 on have very clear and specific ways we can pray for one another.

First, don’t stop praying. Be committed in your prayer life. Take it seriously. You know, when Jesus prayed to the Father, He took it seriously. And we don’t always do that. So pray, don’t stop praying and take it seriously. 

Next, ask God to give the people you are praying for complete knowledge of His will and to give them spiritual wisdom and understanding. Ask the Lord to enable them to live in a way that always honors and pleases God, and for their lives to produce every kind of good fruit (feel free to study the fruit of the Spirit and to ask for those exact things in the lives of the people for whom you pray). And the last part of verse 10 reminds us to pray for people to grow as they learn to know God better and better.

To grow, so this is showing us what growth as a Christian looks like, what maturity looks like. It shows itself as knowing God better and better. And it says to learn to know God better and better. Do you know Him better now than last year at this time? If you don’t, you may need to LEARN to know Him better. Sit at His feet in prayer, read your Bible and pray and ask Him to teach you (learning means being taught, right?) teach you to know Him better. Take time to listen, to be quiet in His presence, to write down what you are learning, because writing it down will cement it more in your heart and mind. Note takers are world changers. There’s so much truth behind that saying. Learn to know Him better. It’s not enough, my friends, to go to church two Sundays a month and that’s all the time you have for Jesus. That is not learning how to know Him better. Get serious about prayer, get serious about reading your Bible, get serious about heeding the conviction and leading of the Lord, get serious about the things the Bible says to get serious about.

 

Verse 11 - pray that they (those for whom you’re praying) will be strengthened with all God’s glorious power so they will have all the patience and endurance they need. Ask God to fill them with joy, and to give them a heart of thankfulness that always thanks the Father. Sometimes we are thanking Him in all things, but maybe not for all things. And I also gotta say, while it was not true at first like the first year or two dealing with serious heart problems, but for sure the last couple of years I can honestly say I have gone from thanking God in this situation to thanking Him for it. One result of perpetual thankfulness is that it spreads, and it’s a good kind of spreading. I want to be contagious with things that actually matter. A bad attitude, a complaining spirit, is so contagious. So is gratitude and thankfulness. Pray that those people on your prayer list will be thankful.

Ask God to enable them to share in the inheritance that only belongs to His people. For them to really, really know Jesus personally and to have the assurance of eternity with the Lord and not separated from Him. That’s the only way to obtain our inheritance, so when pray for them to share in this inheritance, we are seeking God to call out to them, to draw them with cords of lovingkindness, for their salvation. We want those people for whom we pray to live in the light. Jesus is the Light of the world, so let’s pray for people to live in the light and not to walk in any kind of darkness. 

And be sure to praise Him for the work He has done in your life when He rescued you from the kingdom of darkness and transferred you into the Kingdom of His dear Son. Praise Him for purchasing our freedom and forgiving our sins. 

 

Now that is how I pray Colossians chapter one for those on my prayer list. And to kind of make this grab-able (that’s not a word but for today, let’s pretend it is) I made a pdf you can download and the link is at the very top of the show notes and also down at the bottom with my other links, like to my private prayer group where we are going to begin a new weekly time of prayer and teaching about prayer so you can join that, it will go into mid December and then again in the new year, probably all of January and all of February. And also a link to my book A 60-Day Prayer Journal for Parents on Amazon. 

 

Let me pray now for you based on what I put together in the pdf you can grab at the link. As I pray, just let the Lord comfort you and kind of lean in and choose to believe that He will answer this prayer on your behalf. He’s got blessings and favor and goodness for you and I hope, I really mean this from the bottom of my heart, I hope that no matter where you are in life right now that you can lean in and believe Him for these blessings. Trust again. Love the Lord anew today. Hope in Him and receive whatever it is that He wants to give. 

 

Colossians 1 Prayer PDF

Prayer Retreat Group on Facebook

Prayer Journal for Parents on Amazon