3-A Prisoners Prayer
A Prisoner’s Prayer
(Colossians 1:9–12)
The prayers in Paul’s prison letters are certainly unique. To begin with, he prayed for others and not for himself. The requests in his prayers center on spiritual blessings, not on material or physical matters. Of course, it is not wrong to pray about physical or material needs. But spiritual needs are vastly more important.
How would you pray for a group of people you had never seen? All that Paul knew about the believers in Colossae he learned from their faithful pastor, Epaphras. Paul knew of the false teaching that was threatening the church, so he centered his praying on that problem. In his prayer, Paul made three requests.
1. HE PRAYED FOR SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE (1:9)
The false teachers promised the Colossian believers that they would be “in the know” if they accepted the new doctrines. Words like knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual understanding were a part of their religious vocabulary, so Paul used these words in his prayer.
Satan is so deceptive! He likes to borrow Christian vocabulary, but he does not use the Christian dictionary! Long before the false teachers had adopted these terms, the words had been in the Christian vocabulary.
The phrase “for this cause” relates the prayer to what Paul had written in Colossians 1:6: “… and knew the grace of God in truth.” The report from Epaphras convinced Paul that these believers truly knew Christ and were born again. But there was much more to learn from Him and about Him! “You do not need a new spiritual experience,” Paul was saying. “You only need to grow in the experience you have already had.”
When a person is born into God’s family by faith in Jesus Christ, he is born with all that he needs for growth and maturity. This is the theme of Colossians: “And ye are complete in him” (Col. 2:10). No other experience is needed than the new birth. “Do not look for something new,” Paul warned the church. “Continue to grow in that which you received at the beginning” (author’s paraphrase).
Every believer needs to have “the knowledge of his will.” The Greek word translated “knowledge” in this verse carries the meaning of “full knowledge.” There is always more to learn about God and His will for our lives. No Christian would ever dare to say that he had “arrived” and needed to learn nothing more. Like the college freshman who handed in a ten-page report titled “The History of the Universe,” that Christian would only declare his ignorance.
The will of God is an important part of a successful Christian life. God wants us to know His will (Acts 22:14) and understand it (Eph. 5:17). God is not a distant dictator who issues orders and never explains. Because we are His friends, we can know what He is doing and why He is doing it (John 15:13–15). As we study His Word and pray, we discover new and exciting truths about God’s will for His people.
The word filled is a key word in Colossians. It was also a key word in the teachings of the false teachers who had invaded the Colossian church. Paul used it many times (see Col. 1:19, 25; 2:2, 9–10; 4:12, 17 [complete = “filled full”]). The word carries the idea of being fully equipped. It was used to describe a ship that was ready for a voyage. The believer has in Christ all that he needs for the voyage of life. “And ye are complete in him” (Col. 2:10). “And of his fulness have all we received” (John 1:16).
In the language of the New Testament, to be “filled” means to be “controlled by.” When we are filled with anger, we are controlled by anger. To be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18) means to be “controlled by the Spirit.” Paul’s prayer, then, is that these believers might be controlled by the full knowledge of God’s will.
But how does this take place? How can believers grow in the full knowledge of God’s will? Paul’s closing words of Colossians 1:9 tell us: “By means of all wisdom and spiritual insight” (literal translation). We understand the will of God through the Word of God. The Holy Spirit teaches us as we submit to Him (John 14:26; 16:13). As we pray and sincerely seek God’s truth, He gives us through the Spirit the wisdom and insight that we need (Eph. 1:17).
The general will of God for all His children is given clearly in the Bible. The specific will of God for any given situation must always agree with what He has already revealed in His Word. The better we know God’s general will, the easier it will be to determine His specific guidance in daily life. Paul did not encourage the Colossians to seek visions or wait for voices. He prayed that they might get deeper into God’s Word and thus have greater wisdom and insight concerning God’s will. He wanted them to have “all wisdom”—not that they would know everything, but that they would have all the wisdom necessary for making decisions and living to please God.
Spiritual intelligence is the beginning of a successful, fruitful Christian life. God puts no premium on ignorance. I once heard a preacher say, “I didn’t never go to school. I’m just a igerant Christian, and I’m glad I is!” A man does not have to go to school to gain spiritual intelligence, but neither should he magnify his “igerance.”
Great men of God such as Charles Spurgeon, G. Campbell Morgan, and H. A. Ironside never had the privilege of formal Bible training. But they were devoted students of the Word, learning its deeper truths through hours of study, meditation, and prayer. The first step toward fullness of life is spiritual intelligence—growing in the will of God by knowing the Word of God.
2. HE PRAYED FOR PRACTICAL OBEDIENCE (1:10)
The false teachers in Colossae attracted people through their offer of “spiritual knowledge,” but they did not relate this knowledge to life. In the Christian life, knowledge and obedience go together. There is no separation between learning and living. The wisdom about which Paul prayed was not simply a head knowledge of deep spiritual truths (see Col. 1:28; 2:3; 3:16; 4:5). True spiritual wisdom must affect the daily life. Wisdom and practical intelligence must go together (see Ex. 31:3; Deut. 4:6; 1 Cor. 1:19).
In my pastoral ministry, I have met people who have become intoxicated with “studying the deeper truths of the Bible.” Usually they have been given a book or introduced to some teacher’s tapes. Before long, they get so smart they become dumb! The “deeper truths” they discover only detour them from practical Christian living. Instead of getting burning hearts of devotion to Christ (Luke 24:32), they get big heads and start creating problems in their homes and churches. All Bible truths are practical, not theoretical. If we are growing in knowledge, we should also be growing in grace (2 Peter 3:18).
Two words summarize the practicality of the Christian life: walk and work. The sequence is important: first wisdom; then walk; then work. I cannot work for God unless I am walking with Him, but I cannot walk with Him if I am ignorant of His will. The believer who spends time daily in the Word and prayer (Acts 6:4) will know God’s will and be able to walk with Him and work for Him.
After all, our purpose in life is not to please ourselves, but to please the Lord. We should walk worthy of our calling (Eph. 4:1) and worthy of the gospel (Phil. 1:27), which means we will walk worthy of God (1 Thess. 2:12). In short, we should walk to please God (1 Thess. 4:1).
It is not we who work for God; it is God who works in us and through us to produce the fruit of His grace (Phil. 2:12–13). Christian service is the result of Christian devotion. The work that we do is the outflow of the life that we live. It is by abiding in Christ that we can produce fruit (John 15:1ff.).
God must make the worker before He can do the work. God spent thirteen years preparing Joseph for his ministry in Egypt, and eighty years preparing Moses to lead Israel. Jesus spent three years teaching His disciples how to bear fruit; and even the learned apostle Paul needed a “postgraduate course” in Arabia before he could serve God with effectiveness. A newborn babe can cry and make its presence known, but it cannot work. A new Christian can witness for Christ and even win others—but he must be taught to walk and learn God’s wisdom before he is placed in an office of responsible ministry.
God’s wisdom reveals God’s will. As we obey God’s will in our walk, we can work for Him and bear fruit. We will not just occasionally serve God; we will be “fruitful in every good work” (Col. 1:10). But there is a blessed by-product of this experience: “increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10). As we walk with God and work for God, we get to know Him better and better.
Our Christian lives desperately need balance. Certainly we get to know God better as we pray in our private rooms and as we meditate on His Word. But we also get to know Him as we walk in our daily lives and work to win others and help His people.
Worship and service are not competitive. They always go together. When He was ministering on earth, our Lord retired to pray—then He went out to serve. We need to avoid the extremes of impractical mysticism and fleshly enthusiasm. As we spend time with God, we get to understand Him and His will for our lives, and as we go out to obey Him, we learn more.
Practical obedience means pleasing God, serving Him, and getting to know Him better. Any doctrine that isolates the believer from the needs of the world around him is not spiritual doctrine. Evangelist D. L. Moody often said, “Every Bible should be bound in shoe-leather.” Paul would agree.
Paul prayed that we might have spiritual intelligence and that this intelligence might result in practical obedience. But there is a third request that completes these first two; and without it, the Christian life could not be mature.
3. HE PRAYED FOR MORAL EXCELLENCE (1:11–12)
Wisdom and conduct should always be related to moral character. One of the great problems in our evangelical world today is the emphasis on “spiritual knowledge” and “Christian service,” without connecting these important matters to personal character.
For example, some teachers and preachers claim to have God’s wisdom—yet they lack love and kindness and the other basic qualities that make the Christian life beautiful and distinctive. Even some “soul-winning Christians” are so busy serving God that they cannot take time to check facts—so they publish lies about other Christians. For some months, I read a certain religious publication. But when I discovered that it had no “Letters to the Editor” column (except for praise), and that it never published a correction or apologized for an error, I stopped reading the magazine.
Knowledge, conduct, service, and character must always go together. We know God’s will that we might obey it, and, in obeying it, we serve Him and grow in Christian character. While none of us is perfectly balanced in these four factors, we ought to strive for that balance.
It is God’s energy that empowers us. Colossians 1:11 reads, in effect, “With all power being empowered according to the might of His glory.” Paul used two different Greek words for God’s energy: dunamis (from which we get our word dynamite) means “inherent power”; and kratos means “manifested power,” power that is put forth in action. The grace of our Christian lives is but a result of God’s power at work in our lives. Spiritual growth and maturity can come only as we yield to God’s power and permit Him to work in us.
We usually think of God’s glorious power being revealed in great feats of daring—the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, David leading a victorious army, or Paul raising the dead. But the emphasis here is on Christian character: patience, longsuffering, joyfulness, and thanksgiving. The inner victories of the soul are just as great, if not greater, than the public victories recorded in the annals of history. For David to control his temper when he was being maligned by Shimei was a greater victory than his slaying of Goliath (2 Sam. 16:5–13). “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city” (Prov. 16:32 NASB).
The word patience means “endurance when circumstances are difficult.” It is the opposite of despondency. This word is never used in reference to God, for God does not face difficult circumstances. Nothing is impossible with God (Jer. 32:27).
Patience is an important characteristic of the maturing Christian life. If we do not learn to be patient, we are not likely to learn anything else. As believers, we are able to rejoice even in our tribulations, because we know that “tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance proven character; and proven character, hope” (Rom. 5:3–4 NASB).
We must never think that patience is complacency. Patience is endurance in action. It is not the Christian sitting in a rocking chair, waiting for God to do something. It is the soldier on the battlefield, keeping on when the going is tough. It is the runner on the racetrack, refusing to stop because he wants to win the race (Heb. 12:1).
Too many Christians have a tendency to quit when circumstances become difficult. The saintly Dr. V. Raymond Edman, late president of Wheaton College, used to remind the students, “It is always too soon to quit.”
I have often thought of that statement when I find myself in the midst of trying circumstances. It is not talent or training that guarantees victory: it is perseverance. “By perseverance the snail reached the ark,” said Charles Spurgeon.
Along with patience, we need longsuffering. This word means “self-restraint” and is the opposite of revenge. Patience has to do primarily with circumstances, while longsuffering has to do with people. God is longsuffering toward people because of His love and grace (2 Peter 3:9). Longsuffering is one fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). It is among the “grace garments” that the believer should wear (Col. 3:12).
It is amazing how people can patiently endure trying circumstances, only to lose their tempers with a friend or loved one. Moses was patient during the contest with Pharaoh in Egypt. But he lost his temper with his own people and, as a result, forfeited his right to enter the Promised Land (Num. 20). “Like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit” (Prov. 25:28 NASB).
Patience and longsuffering go together if we are growing spiritually. Paul listed them as the marks of the true minister of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 6:4–6). Certainly, Paul displayed these graces in his own life (2 Tim. 3:10). The great example of patience and longsuffering in the Old Testament is Job (James 5:10–11). In the New Testament, of course, it is Jesus Christ.
It is easy for God to perform miracles in the realms of the material or physical because everything in creation obeys His command. Jesus could heal Malchus’s ear, but He could not automatically change Peter’s heart and remove the hatred and violence that was in it (Luke 22:50–51). God could bring water out of the rock, but He could not force Moses to be patient.
A pastor often visited a Christian young man who had been badly burned. The young man had to lie still for hours, and it was difficult for him to perform even the basic functions of life.
“I wish God would do a miracle and heal me,” the young man said to his pastor one day.
“God is doing a miracle,” the pastor replied, “but not the kind you are looking for. I have watched you grow in patience and kindness during these weeks. That, to me, is a greater miracle than the healing of your body.”
God’s power is evidenced in our lives not only in our patience and longsuffering, but also in our joyfulness. When circumstances are difficult, we should exhibit joyful patience, and when people are hard to live with, we should reveal joyful longsuffering. There is a kind of patience that “endures but does not enjoy.” Paul prayed that the Colossian Christians might experience joyful patience and longsuffering.
We often use the words joy and happiness interchangeably, but a distinction should be made. Happiness often depends on happenings. If circumstances are encouraging and people are kind, we are happy. But joy is independent of both circumstances and people. The most joyful epistle Paul wrote was Philippians, and he wrote it from jail as he faced the possibility of being martyred for his faith.
Only God’s Spirit working within us can give us joy in the midst of problem circumstances and problem people. “The fruit of the Spirit is … joy” (Gal. 5:22). Joy is not something that we ourselves “work up”; it is something the Spirit Himself “works in”—“joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17 NIV).
I can recall times in my life when all the circumstances around me pointed to difficulty and possible defeat. Yet my heart was filled with a spiritual joy that could come only from God. Sad to say, I also remember times (far too many!) when I gave in to the problems around me, and I lost both the joy and the victory.
The fourth evidence of God’s power in our lives is thankfulness. Christians who are filled with the Holy Spirit will be joyful and thankful (Eph. 5:18–20). When we lose our joy, we start complaining and becoming critical.
The Colossian epistle is filled with thanksgiving. Paul gave thanks for the church in Colossae (Col. 1:3), and he prayed that they might grow in their own thanksgiving to God (Col. 1:12). The Christian life should abound with thanksgiving (Col. 2:7). One of the evidences of spiritual growth in our Bible study is thanksgiving (Col. 3:15–17). Our prayers should always include thanksgiving (Col. 4:2). The Christian who is filled with the Spirit, filled with the Word, and watching in prayer will prove it by his attitude of appreciation and thanksgiving to God.
Some people are appreciative by nature, but some are not, and it is these latter people who especially need God’s power to express thanksgiving. We should remember that every good gift comes from God (James 1:17) and that He is (as the theologians put it) “the Source, Support, and End of all things.” The very breath in our mouths is the free gift of God.
On September 8, 1860, a passenger boat, the Lady Elgin, foundered near Evanston, and a ministerial student, Edward Spencer, personally rescued seventeen persons. The exertion of that day permanently damaged his health and he was unable to train for the ministry. When he died some years later, it was noted that not one of the seventeen persons he had saved ever came to thank him.
Thankfulness is the opposite of selfishness. The selfish person says, “I deserve what comes to me! Other people ought to make me happy!” But the mature Christian realizes that life is a gift from God, and that the blessings of life come only from His bountiful hand.
Of course, the one blessing that ought to move us constantly to thanksgiving is that God has made us “meet [fit] to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12). The word fit means “qualified”: God has qualified us for heaven! And, while we are waiting for Christ to return, we enjoy our share of the spiritual inheritance that we have in Him (Eph. 1:11, 18–23).
In the Old Testament, God’s people had an earthly inheritance, the land of Canaan. Christians today have a spiritual inheritance in Christ. Canaan is not a picture of heaven, for there will be no battles or defeats in heaven. Canaan is a picture of our present inheritance in Christ. We must claim our inheritance by faith as we step out on the promises of God (Josh. 1:1–9). Day by day, we claim our blessings, and this makes us even more thankful to the Lord.
As we review this marvelous prayer, we can see how penetrating it is. We need spiritual intelligence if we are going to live to please God. We also need practical obedience in our walk and work. But the result of all of this must be spiritual power in the inner man, power that leads to joyful patience and longsuffering, with thanksgiving.
Have you been praying this way lately?
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL REFLECTION
OR GROUP DISCUSSION
1. What requests do you usually pray about the most? Why?
2. Read Colossians 1:9–12. On what did Paul focus when he prayed for the Colossian believers?
3. Why did Paul begin this section with “for this cause”?
4. How can we be “filled with the knowledge of [God’s] will”?
5. Why does God show us His will?
6. How can knowledge be deadening? How have you experienced this in your own life?
7. How do we walk in a manner that pleases God? How can you improve on this in your daily life?
8. What kind of fruit does God expect His children to bear?
9. Why was Paul concerned about the Colossians’ moral character?
10. Why are some people able to separate spiritual knowledge and Christian service from character?
11. What are the evidences of God’s power in your life? Take some time to thank Him for these right now.