There is so much good stuff in this letter that I could write reams about that it’s difficult to know where to start so I want us to focus on just one section of it.
9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.
I’ve prayed for many people in my time. I’ve struggled for the right words, searched for inspiration, asked God how to pray for people and stumbled clumsily through many well-intentioned prayers and wondered afterwards if they were good enough. And then I read a prayer like this one from Paul and think “Ah that’s how you do it!”
It strikes me that the best prayers are the ones where we set everything in our minds to one side, we park our cluttered thoughts and put away our need to be clever and ask for the one thing we all need – more of God! That is essentially what Paul does here and it’s what we all need most. It is in God we will find wisdom, we will find peace, healing, restoration, purpose, guidance, strength and so very, very much more.
Perhaps that’s all we need to do for today – just stop and seek a bit more of God for yourself and for those you know, love and care for.
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Question:
Who are you praying for at the moment? What are you asking god to do for them? What are you asking Him to do for you? Does it need to be more complicated that Paul’s prayer from vs. 9-11?
Prayer:
Lord God I pray for my family/friends/acquaintances that our love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that we may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God. Amen.