Colossians Chapter 1 - Paul's prayer, verse 9

How do we pray for other Christians? What should we pray for, focus on? what should we pray for?
People often pray for other Christians in the Bible. Paul's prayer is summarised here as he does in other letters. All of these prayers are different, they are not all the same. There are some similarities. How does this help us if they are different? There is no one size fits all formula. When we pray for other Christians and churches we pray differently because they match the situation they are in. The prayers reflect the lives of the christian and Churches. . We must pray relevantly for people. We must find out their needs. We need to find out and listen to reports so we know the needs and circumstances. That doesn't mean that if we don't have news we don't pray, God knows their situation and we can commit them into God's hands. We should take time to find out so we can be specific.
Paul shows that he is familiar with people. They are addressed to God and show Paul was familiar with God, so Paul is bold and asks for big things, wonderful things. Paul is not timid as we can be, we often do not ask boldly as we should. If we are able to ask for a gift we would look to what their resources are, when we come to God and bring our prayers. We need to remember how great he is.
He is omnipotent, he has endless, limitless power, we need to remember this and be confident when we ask him. We need to look to how God answers our prayers. We need to understand God's nature and will. Paul asks for spiritual things in a spiritual, not worldly way.
Paul begins 'for this reason' , the reason was that he had heard from Epaphras so much good about this young church. He had spoken about false teachers and Paul was moved to pray. He prayed in a particular way. What he knew about them and God determined how he prayed.
The false teachers offered some sort of fullness teaching beyond what Epaphras offered - a secret knowledge to heighten their experience of God. Paul answered this issues and faced up to it. He asked for knowledge and power that was different from false teachers.
The false teachers offered a quick and easy way to knowledge. In the 2nd century gnosticism gained ground, it offered secret, special knowledge,. It was secret in that only a few knew it and no one could challenge it because they had access to it. It was immune.
When Paul wrote it was when early roots of this were emerging - evident in other letters. The Gnostic movement is still prevalent today. It is seen on the Internet. Some claimed (and still claim) to have words of knowledge today and it is hard to challenge.
Paul asked that they would make proper use of what they had heard , the knowledge of God's will which they needed to know. Paul wanted them to know this. It was not direct revelation but it was through application not revelation. In verse 6 Paul said they knew the gospel but it needed applying. How do we know the will of another person? We must listen to what they say and know them and read the signals so we know what they mean. We need to understand the person.
We need wisdom and understanding. To know God's will we need spiritual wisdom and understanding. He has revealed his will in scriptures, we need to apply spiritual wisdom and understanding to what the Bible says - 1 Corinthian 2:1 to 10. We need to apply this in every area of our lives. In Ephesians 1:17 Paul asks for people to have the spirit of wisdom and power.
We need to know God better, this is what Paul wanted for these young Christians. Paul did not want them to miss out on anything, he wanted them to have this fullness by growing in what they had - the truth of God revealed in the scriptures. They could not have a complete understanding of God's will. God has not revealed all of what he is going to do in the future. We have an adequate knowledge to be able to live our lives. We couldn't deal with it all if he did. Jesus was foretold but he was rejected by men.
We should be saturated in this knowledge, it should affect our home, school work and personal lives. Verse 10 gives us the purpose, the knowledge must be used as fertiliser helps plants grow to their best advantage.
The knowledge must be applied. Paul outlines the results:
1. Our lives must be pleasing to God. If we love God and what pleases him, we will do what he wants.
2. Put negatively, we will know how much sin displeases him. We will hate sin as he hates it. The knowledge will help us turn away from sin. If we are a child of God we have the privilege of learning Christ's name. We are meant to live as Christ's ambassadors. We need to please God in every way. We expect an ambassador to behave well, but he has time off. Christians are on duty all of the time. God sees when our standards slip.
3. We should bear fruit in every good work. Good works don't save us. They are the fruit, not the root, of our salvation. Good works are important, they are not an add on to our lives. We are commanded to reflect God's love in what we do for others - how we care for them. The harvest of wisdom is work. The harvest of the secret knowledge is pride in what we know, true wisdom produces compassion towards people as Christ did.
4 The final result is growth in the knowledge of God - knowledge is not static, but it is built upon. We do not forget what we learn, we build upon it piece by piece. Our knowledge of God is no different, we can never understand everything about God but we can grow . It should lead to a holy life style and we can become closer to God, it is a never ending circle. If this is not our experience, where has the circle broken?
5. Finally Paul pleads for power in verse 11, he asks for all power according to his glorious might, it is the power that created everything and raised Jesus from the dead, it is the power we need to live and grow day by day. The power gave them great endurance and patience, they would be overwhelmed if they had anything less. Without it we would not have been converted. The Colossians were being offered a very weak alternative. It was nothing compared to what God had given them. Jesus had used this power to heal people and forgive sins and give eternal life.
Jesus' power changes us within and preserves and empowers us. This is what Paul prays for it will give them the endurance they needed. The end result is that it glorifies God. This gives us hope for our lives and it gives us direction for how we should pray for other believers.