Wednesday 12 May, 2021

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. 3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people— 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our[d] behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit. 9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The apostle Paul is writing to the church at Colossae, which is a church that he has never even visited. His letter is filled with love and concern for a people that he cannot reach personally and has limited influence over.

In light of his love and concern for this church that is so far away, what does Paul do?  He prays.

Paul prayed that they would:

(1) know God’s will for their lives,

(2) walk worthy of the Lord,

(3) be fruitful in good works,

(4) increase in the knowledge of God,

(5) be strengthened by His power.

So, like me, you probably also have someone (or likely more than one person) in your world that you love and are concerned about, but you can’t reach them. But we can always do something very powerful. We can pray.

Perhaps today you can use these prayers of Paul to pray that they would know God’s will for their lives, walk in a worthy way, be fruitful, ever increasing in the knowledge of God and strengthened by His power… (and while you are at it, you could ask God for that for yourself too!)

Written by Shelley Witt