How to pray for other Christians

Series: Colossians (Part 2) By Rosie Moore.

When you pray for other Christians, what do you say? Have you ever felt that you don’t have the words to express yourself? Join the club! Sometimes the best I can come up with is, “Lord, please bless the whole family and keep them safe!”

In our intercessory prayers, it’s easy to succumb to nebulous platitudes which lack original thought, or to resort to a litany of one “gimme” after another. One of the ways to avoid shallow and vague prayers is to pray Scripture back to God, allowing the Bible to guide us as we express our own thoughts and situations. If our prayers are based on Scripture, we can be assured that they will be pleasing to God. Today, let’s look at Paul’s prayer for the Colossian Christians in Colossians 1:3-12.

Praying Scripture.

In this prayer, Paul says that since he heard of their conversion, he and Timothy have prayed non-stop for the new Christians in Colossae. In his prayer, Paul gives us insight into what we should most desire and therefore ask for when we pray for our Christian family and friends. Paul provides five petitions which we can personalise as a model for our own prayers:

³ We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, ⁴ since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, ⁵ because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, ⁶ which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, ⁷ just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf ⁸ and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

⁹ And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰ so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; ¹¹ being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. ¹³ He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:3-12).

1. A prayer of thanks.

Paul starts by expressing thanks to God for their faith and changed lives after responding to the gospel preached faithfully by Epaphras (Col 1:3, 12-14). He specifically mentions the Christians’ love for all the saints. Thanksgiving for the gospel and its transformative power in the life of a believer changes our perspective and sets the scene for other requests and petitions.

Specifically, Paul thanks God, “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” for rescuing His people from one kingdom and transferring them to another. Divine rescue from the “domain of darkness” reminds us of the horrific danger that every lost person is in before God made us saints in the kingdom of his loving Son (Col 1:12-14). Paul is boasting in the Lord for redeeming a group of people who were totally incapable of rescuing themselves from a kingdom marked by fear, slavery and darkness. He is boasting in the cross.

It’s important to start our prayers by expressing thanks to God for the cross, because we often drift into shortsighted, insular petitions that are focused on day-to-day problems and self-centred desires. A prayer of thanks lifts our eyes beyond the ceiling to see that the greatest privilege a believer enjoys is our deliverance from the slave market of sin by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. We can never thank God enough for the gift of salvation and the blessings attached to our status as forgiven saints in Christ.

In his prayer of thanksgiving, Paul is reminding the Colossians that they are now ruled by different values and priorities, since they have become heavenly citizens and co-heirs in God’s household. They are now people of light, not darkness.

2. A prayer for knowledge.

Next, Paul prays for his Christian friends to know God’s will and grow in spiritual wisdom and understanding (Col 1:9-10).

Here, Paul is not praying for mere head knowledge, nor for some divine download or special revelation reserved for super-spiritual, elite Christians. Paul is praying for the faith and practice of ordinary Christians to be one and the same, for consistency between their creed and deed. He is praying for practical wisdom in those who know God. In verse 10, Paul prays for a knowledge of God that translates into four specific outcomes:

• A life worthy of the Lord Jesus.
• A life which pleases God in every way.
• A life of good works and fruitfulness.
• A life which is forever growing in personal relationship with God.

This prayer teaches us that when we pray for Christian friends and family, we should pray that their knowledge of God would lead to sanctification and fruitfulness in their lives. After all, didn’t Christ say that righteous works are the supernatural fruit of genuine saving faith (Matt 7:16)? We are saved not by good works, but for good works. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:8-10).

Paul expressed a desire that the Colossian Christians be deeply changed from the inside out, because he understood that the greatest good of the Christian life is not the absence of pain, but Christlikeness (1 Thess 5:23-24). In his book “The Discipline of Grace”, Jerry Bridges writes that this is the goal of sanctification:

“The goal of sanctification is likeness to our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that we “are being transformed into his likeness”. In Romans 8:29, he said that God “predestined [all believers] to be conformed to the likeness of his Son”. Christlikeness is God’s goal for all who trust in Christ, and that should be our goal also. Both words, transformed and conformed, have a common root, form, meaning a pattern or a mould. “Being transformed” refers to the process; conformed refers to the finished product. Jesus is our pattern or mold. We are being transformed so that we will eventually be conformed to the likeness of Jesus.”

If sanctification is God’s purpose and priority for our lives, we ought to pray for a Christian to embrace his complete identity in Christ in the rough and tumble of life. For no gap to arise between a believer’s talk and walk. For redeemed sinners to rest in God’s provision as they struggle against stubborn sins. For a believer to keep on repenting and keep on believing the gospel they first heard. For a brother or sister not to be a forgetful hearer of the Word, but an obedient doer of the Word (Matt 5:24-27; James 1:21-22.)

In view of the many Christians living in habitual sin and the recent exposure of celebrity megachurch pastors, perhaps Christians ought to pray less for the “blessed” life and more for the “transformed” or “holy” life.

3. A Prayer for power.

In Colossians 1:11-12, Paul prays for God’s power to strengthen the Christians. Wouldn’t every Christian love to be struck by a lightning rod of God’s power? But again, notice the reason why Paul prays for divine power on their behalf.

Divine power is not a means to personal gain, fame, and fortune. Nor is it an escape button or an excuse to “Let go and let God”. God’s power is needed so that the Colossian Christians would develop four character traits to live a fruitful Christian life:  Endurance and Patience, combined with Joy and Thanksgiving. Only the Holy Spirit who lives within and empowers us to become like Christ, can develop godly character where it is lacking in us. “The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do it” (1 Thess 5:23-24).

4. A prayer for endurance and patience.

Do you, like Paul, pray for the Holy Spirit to develop endurance in fellow Christians, particularly when they are facing adversity? (Col 1:11) Another word for endurance is perseverance. Perseverance produces proven character (Rom 5:3-5).

Perseverance of the saints is an important doctrine. In Hebrews 12:1, the writer instructs believers to get rid of everything that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles, to run the race of faith with perseverance. Mature believers are characterized by perseverance (Titus 2:2) which is demonstrated in doing good and in prayer (Rom 2:5-8; Eph 6:18). When speaking about endurance and patience, the Bible uses words like discipline, strive, work out, train, flee and pursue (Luke 13:24; Phil 2:12; 1 Tim 4:7; 2 Tim 2:22). The Christian life is not a passive ride. It requires great endurance.

And so, when we pray for each another, we need to ask God for the power and patience to endure. As sinners, we are prone to look for the easy way out, and our unredeemed flesh is attracted to simplistic formulas for instant godliness such as “Just let Jesus take control”. These formulas fail because they promise victory apart from the daily grind of self-discipline, which produces endurance over a lifetime. There are no shortcuts to spiritual maturity. It requires Spirit-empowered endurance and patience.

Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), not a virtue that comes naturally to most of us. We are commanded to learn patience (1 Thess 5:14; Psalm 37:7; James 5:7-8), as it pleases God (1 Peter 2:18-20). Paul says that we are to be “joyful in hope, patient in affliction, persistent in prayer” (Rom 12:12). In a world of instant gratification, we need to pray for patient endurance to grow in one another.

5. A prayer for joy and gratitude.

“…being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 

 Do you pray for fellow Christians to have joyful, thankful hearts, regardless of their circumstances? A joyful heart is a gift from God, not something we can muster up on our own (Gal 5:22). It is a joy energized by the Holy Spirit (1 Thess 1:6). This is the kind of happiness that is not dampened by suffering or hard circumstances (Habakkuk 3:17-18; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 1:3-9).  And if Paul is anything to go by, this kind of joy is the fruit of investing in the lives of others (Phil 2:1-18).

It is only the Holy Spirit who can empower us to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 2:17-18; 3:1; 4:4; Psalm 32:11).

And so, like Paul, let’s pray for one another without ceasing (Col 1:9), using the deep prayers in Scripture to guide us in our requests. Paul’s prayer in Colossians chapter 1 is a God-given template for this purpose. Let’s remind ourselves that we are nothing and can accomplish nothing without prayer. It is also the greatest gift we can give one another.

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstance; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess 5:16-18).