All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible 1995 Ed. (NASB95), published by The Lockman Foundation

How do you pray for yourself and for other believers in the Lord Jesus? Of course, we all have our specific prayers for specific situations, difficulties, and problems. However, aren’t there a few fundamental blessings that we can pray for any believer in any situation? I would argue that there are, and these things are taught in great detail through the wonderful examples found in the New Testament letters.

Particularly, I want to show you one of the best examples of prayer for believers found in the Bible. It’s one of three prayer descriptions in the New Testament that I use as the basis for requests I make to the Lord on a daily basis. It covers all the basic needs that we have for living godly lives. When the apostle Paul was under house arrest, and awaiting a hearing with Ceasar, he wrote to a group of believers whom he had never met before. In spite of this, he still cared deeply for them, and said that he was always praying for them. Near the beginning of his letter to them, he summarizes the things he asks for them in his prayers. This provides one of the best outlines of how we ought to be praying for ourselves and our brethren on a daily basis.

The main benefit that Paul says he asks for them is “the knowledge of His will,” so that they’ll “please Him in all respects” (v. 9). Then, he lists the main ways in which they’ll be pleasing to the Lord if they understand and carry out His will consistently. Not only does this show us how to pray, but it also shows us what marks of godliness we ought to be seeking to live out as servants of the Lord.

Paul describes his prayers just after he’s explained why he’s constantly thankful for the believers in the city of Colossae, and how he knows they’re true believers from the testimony of their main leader, Epaphras. So, in his prayer description, he includes four basic requests, which we’ll look at in detail shortly:

  1. For their Full Knowledge of God’s Will (v. 9)
  2. For their Fitting Walk for the Lord (v. 10)
  3. For their Steadfastness Under Trials (v. 11)
  4. For their Joyful Thankfulness (vss. 11-14)

Keeping in mind these four main prayer requests of Paul, let’s read the section he writes:

“For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” – Colossians 1:9-14

He Prays for Their Full Knowledge of God’s Will

Of first concern in Paul’s mind when he thinks of the things that believers need to faithfully and increasingly represent the Lord Jesus is an increasing understanding of God’s will for them. Isn’t this one of our main complaints – that we’re unsure of what the Lord’s will is for us? Then it ought to come as no surprise that Paul wants God to grant this to his Colossian brethren.

Yet, Paul shows us the manner of his praying before he gets into the requests themselves. He begins his description by saying, “for this reason also, since the day we heard”. What is the reason he’s talking about? It’s their spiritual condition that he heard about from Epaphras, who specifically told Paul of their “love in the Spirit” (v. 8). In fact, this reason he’s mentioning is a continuation of what he wrote earlier, when he told them that he was “praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints” (vss. 3-4). All this is to say that the reason Paul is praying for them is because he knows that they’re true believers who are living faithfully, and loving their brethren. After reminding them why he’s praying for them, he tells them that he’s been praying these same things since the day he heard of their faith. And this praying has been unceasing. Clearly, Paul is earnest about their spiritual health, and regularly bringing it up to the Lord.

Now that we’ve seen why he’s asking for these things, how precisely does he ask the Lord to give them knowledge of His will? He starts with its extent in them. He doesn’t merely ask that they get knowledge of God’s will, but that they be filled with it. To have a person filled with something at least conveys the idea that this thing will pour out of them in their actions and interactions. In fact, we can see in Luke’s account of the Day of Pentecost that the 1st century Greek-speaking people used the idea of being “filled” to refer to drunkenness. Some of the crowd that listened to the disciples preaching the gospel on that day accused them of being “full of new wine”. In other words, they were saying that the disciples were controlled by wine, since they had excessively drunk it (though they hadn’t). Similarly, to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will means to be controlled by that knowledge in your thinking and decisions.

However, in order to be controlled by knowledge, one must first be captivated and fixated on that knowledge. You must be thinking carefully and intently on such truth. Hence, Paul’s also asking that the Colossians will seek, learn, and apply the knowledge of God’s will.

This brings us to the outworking of this knowledge, which Paul defines as “spiritual wisdom and understanding” (v. 9). In Scripture, wisdom refers to the practical and deliberate application of truth to specific situations, while understanding is just the understanding of those situations that comes from knowledge of God’s will.

But in order to grasp what this wisdom and understanding looks like, we need to remember what God’s will is. As I see it, there are three main senses in which God’s will can be understood. First, God’s will is His sovereign, kingly, determination of all events, which He has already planned out ahead of time (often called His “decree”). Second, there is God’s will expressed in His commands for all His children, as they’re expressed in the writings of the New Testament. Finally, God’s will comes to us individually as the specific courses of actions we each ought to take as we apply the general principles of His commands for Christians to our individual situations.

So which of these senses of God’s will does Paul have in mind? I believe he’s encompassing all three, but the emphasis is probably on the last two. Paul has been unceasingly praying that the Colossians will abound with the knowledge of God’s will for them as His children, and as unique individuals, so that they’ll have the wisdom and understanding needed to make decisions that please the Lord. One of the best words to sum this ability up is “discernment”. Paul wants the Lord to enable them to discern what He would have them think and do, out of all the competing options available to them. And this will lead to his next request for them, which will be the practical outworking of their wisdom and understanding.

He Prays for Their Fitting Walk for the Lord

In the next verse (v. 10), Paul explains what will be the result of the Colossians gaining such a filling of the knowledge of God’s will. There are three main results. First, they’ll “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord”. Second, they’ll bear the fruit of “every good work”. And finally, they’ll increase “in the knowledge of God”.

The metaphor of “walking” is used many times in the New Testament letters in reference to people’s everyday life. It paints the picture of a person taking one repeated step at a time, in the direction of his intended destination. Likewise, in our everyday lives, we repeatedly make the same kinds of decisions over and over, so that we can reach our intended goals. This repetition of barely conscious decisions forms the bulk of most of our lifestyles. Hence, our daily lives can be called our “walks”.

Thus, to walk in a manner that’s “worthy of the Lord” is to conduct our daily routines and lifestyles in a way that accurately represents what the Lord is like. In essence, Paul is saying that he’s praying for the Colossians to live their everyday lives in ways that reflect the character and glory of the Lord Jesus. That is, they are going to live like He did.

And what is the main purpose of living like this? “To please Him in all respects”. Now, as we know from elsewhere in the New Testament, it’s expected and necessary that believers occasionally sin, so Paul can’t be speaking of perfectly and constantly pleasing the Lord. Instead, he’s speaking of extensive and multifaceted pleasing of Him. In other words, if we’re walking in a way worthy of Him, every major area and sphere of our life will be lived in some way to please Him. There will be no area of our life that is untouched by our ultimate pursuit of obeying and imitating Him.

And Paul describes this with two main elements. The first is all kinds of good works, and the second is an increasing experience of God’s character and presence. As he’s already spoken of when illustrating the divine work of the gospel in the world earlier in this letter’s introduction, he again imagines good works as “fruit” that are grown from believer’s lives. Because of the picture he’s already used, we can infer that the good works here are the fruit of the Gospel that’s working in the Colossians. And Paul again speaks of a wholeness and extensiveness in their scope, since he says that they’ll produce every good work. As we’ve already explained, this doesn’t mean that they’ll do every imaginable and possible good work, but every category of good work. There’s no area of life that will be absent of good behavior.

Finally, and most importantly in their worthy walk for the Lord, Paul is praying that the Colossians will increase in knowing God. As the life he’s described isn’t merely intellectual or theoretical, but practical and experiential, this has to refer both to knowing about God, and the knowing of God. What he’s saying is that, as they grow in their worthy walk by obeying and imitating Jesus, and increasingly see His work in their hearts to do things reflecting His character, they’ll learn more about God, and experience more and more of His power and character in their minds and circumstances. In other words, they’ll increasingly recognize His work inside of them, and through them. The end will be that they’ll also increasingly appreciate and rejoice in His work in their lives. This serves as the basis for Paul’s next request.

He Prays for Their Steadfastness Under Trials

The next prayer described in this passage is requesting the work of the Lord in enabling the Colossians to endure trials with perseverance. As part of living worthily of Jesus, and growing in knowing God through their full knowledge of God’s will, Paul says that they’ll gain the power needed to remain faithful when they’re undergoing trials and troubles.

He puts this as being “strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience” (v. 11). Don’t miss that he’s praying that they’ll be strengthened with all power – that is, all the power they need. And of course, this power isn’t from them, but from God, the all-glorious, and all-powerful One. By adding this description of their strengthening source, he’s calling them to remember that they’ll receive all the power they need for trials, since the power is from God, and not themselves.

But the specific purpose of this power he states as “the attaining of all steadfastness and patience”. Notice again that it’s all steadfastness and patience, so they’ll lack no degree of it. But what do these terms mean? Why use two words that are so closely related? Paul is most likely expressing responses to two different kinds of trials. The first word could also be translated “perseverance” or “endurance”. In the New Testament, it’s usually used to refer to the constancy of faith and obedience to God in the midst of circumstantial afflictions in general. On the other hand, the second word “patience” would be well translated as “forbearance” or “longsuffering”. This word is usually used in Scripture to refer to the calm and peaceable endurance of mistreatment from others. Hence, we see here both perseverance through troubles, and the forgiving endurance of persecution and mistreatment. Both are necessary to live in a way worthy of Jesus. But believers must rely on His power to enable them to obey His commands while suffering discomfort, difficulties, afflictions, and others’ mistreatment. And yet, through His power, Paul goes on to say that they can live and love like Jesus joyfully and thankfully. This is grounded in a reminder he adds to his prayers of how their life status and condition has fundamentally changed.

He Prays for Their Joyful Thankfulness

The last request and expected result of Paul’s prayers for the Colossians is the fitting attitude that he wants them to have. This is an attitude of joyful thankfulness. He includes this attitude in his description of the worthy lifestyle he prays the Lord will enable them to live. Along with doing good deeds, increasing in knowing God, being strengthened with power to persevere and forbear with suffering, he describes the worthy walk of the Christian as “joyously giving thanks to the Father”.

One seemingly elusive concept in our western Christian culture is this of being joyful. What does it mean? Well, as Paul makes abundantly clear in his Letter to the Philippians, it means to “rejoice in the Lord always”. At least, this is the regular and outward expression of being joyful. But note that both “joyfully giving thanks” and “rejoicing in the Lord” find their basis in God, not in circumstances. That’s why joy can be defined as a deep-seated disposition of contentment, peace, and delight in knowing the Lord through faith in His promises and Word. And at times, this joy bubbles up in feelings of delight that can be called “rejoicing”.

And how does Paul pray for the Colossians to rejoice here? By “giving thanks to the Father”. Hence, recognizing what God has done for them will allow them to rejoice. That’s why Paul ends this section describing his prayers by explaining the main blessings that God has given them.

There are at least five blessings that the Father has bestowed on believers in these last few verses. First, He “qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light”. This means that God gave us a new status that privileges us with a part in God’s inheritance of “Light”. What is this inheritance? It’s the inheritance that God long ago promised to Abraham’s Seed, which includes an eternal land, an eternal kingdom, and an eternal people. Now, this Seed is the Messiah, as Paul asserts in Galatians 3. But since the Seed is part of the Light of truth and righteousness (in fact, the Light), and believers are placed in Him through their faith, they too share in this inheritance. We also know from other Scriptures, mainly in the New Testament, that this inheritance is ultimately the new heavens and new earth, in which righteousness dwells. Thus, we ought to regularly give thanks to God for making us co-heirs of Jesus’s eternal inheritance, as His fellow “saints”, or “separate ones”.

The second blessing that’s described in this section is that “He rescued us from the domain of darkness” (v. 13). This is the beginning of our change of status for our possession of Christ’s inheritance. We once were under the domain, or rulership, of sin’s and Satan’s darkness. That is, we once were controlled by our sinful desires and affections, in our natural hostility and rebellion against God. But God rescued us from this. He did this through His third blessing for us, which is moving us into “the kingdom of His beloved Son” (v. 13). Instead of being under the reign of Satan, we’re now under the reign of King Jesus, the Ruler of God’s heavenly kingdom. And this kingdom is the essence of our inheritance.

How did God justly change our allegiance and condition to make us loyal subjects of His Son? First of all by giving us redemption through Jesus. The Greek term, as well as the English term, here means being freed from slavery through a payment. Jesus, through His suffering and death, paid the price that God demanded for us to be freed from the bondage of sin, death, and eternal punishment. Therefore, we’re no longer enslaved to these masters and enemies, but free to live lives pleasing to Him. But in order to effect this change, God had to provide us with “the forgiveness of sins” (v. 14). By immediately following “redemption” with this forgiveness, Paul is saying that the fundamental basis for God’s forgiveness of all our sins is Jesus’s redemption of our souls. In other words, it’s mainly because Jesus redeemed us through His death, that God has now forgiven believers. And because we’ve been redeemed and forgiven, God has justly embraced us into His Son’s kingdom. Clearly, for all these things, we ought to regularly, and joyfully, give thanks to our Father.

Pray for Full Knowledge, a Fitting Walk, Steadfastness, and Thankfulness

As I said in the beginning, this passage obviously provides us with a complete and simple example of how to pray for ourselves, and any brother or sister. We ought to follow Paul’s example here in our prayers, and in our aspirations for our daily living.

To review and apply what we’ve talked about in this description, there are four key blessings we ought to pray for constantly:

First and most importantly, we need to pray that God will fill brethren with the knowledge of His will through wisdom and understanding. If we’re to grow in doing God’s will, it’s imperative that we know what that will is in general, as well as it’s specifics for each of our individual lives. We need to not only know what Scripture commands us to do, but also how to apply these commands to our particular situations through experiential and practical wisdom.

Second, we ought to pray for the ability to live consistently with our identity as followers of Jesus through constant good deeds and a continual growth in knowing God. This knowledge of God should be the main pursuit of our lives, since we’ve been born again to experience, appreciate, and delight in our Lord and Savior’s goodness and love.

Third, we must regularly pray for the power we need to be steadfast and forbearing in our sufferings of affliction and trouble. And the promise here is that we know God’s will, live it out, and acknowledge our Lord in all our ways, then He’ll provide us with the ability to obey Him even while suffering whatever He allows in our lives for our good.

Finally, we need to constantly thank God with joy for the inheritance, rescue, allegiance, redemption, and forgiveness that He’s give to us in Light. And we should pray that as we continually increase in our understanding of these blessings, that we’ll appropriately increase in our joyful thanksgiving to Him for His glorious grace.

Last question: do you pray for these things on a daily basis? Both you and your brethren in Christ need all these blessings daily, in order to please Him in all respects, as He receives more and more recognition and praise. So please prioritize these things as essential for your life, and as essential requests in your prayers.