prayer

colossians 1:9-14
 9For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 13For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.


My prayer life for others tends to focus on practical needs - a friend's illness, a colleague's financial situation, a family member's driving test. There's nothing wrong with praying about these things, in fact, we should be praying about these things. But if that's all we pray for, then the illness, recession and driving test will come and go and the person may be no closer to Jesus as a result. As well as the practical stuff, we need to be praying for others that they grow in knowledge, wisdom and understanding of God.

Paul prays for the Christians in Colossae that they would have more wisdom, understanding and knowledge of God, so that will affect the way they live their lives, which will increase their knowledge of God! This may seem like a circle, but it might be more helpful to think of it as a spiral of growth. The more we see and understand of God, the more we live like Him, and as we live more like Him, we see and understand more of who He is and what He's done. Our understanding of God and the way we live our lives are inseperable. There is no such thing as theoretical theology - it's all practical.


What exactly do we need to know about God? As v13-14 say, we need to understand that we were living in darkness, but He has brought us out of it, He has forgiven our sins, He has redeemed us. We were lost and we needed someone to find us. We were dying and we needed a Saviour. That's what He has done