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Prayer for Knowledge

Prayer for Knowledge

Words of Faith 9-23-19

Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoy © 2019

Jeff.Hoy@faithfellowshipweb.com

Faith Fellowship Church - Melbourne, FL

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Colossians 1

     [9] For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.  

 

      Have you ever felt like you just didn't understand what was going on around you?  Things sometimes happen that we just don't understand, and yet God has allowed them to be. We struggle to know God and try to understand His will.

      The believers in Colosse probably felt exactly this way.  Their town had faced an economic downturn.  The growth and prosperity of the Roman roads had passed them by.  They were struggling in a down economy and then heard about the "great revival" over in Ephesus.  They may have even felt bypassed by all these events, but Paul was confident that God was at work in a great way among them. Paul knew that this was not some peripheral work of God or the backsplash of His work in Ephesus; this was the work of God

      We find this expressed in a powerful prayer.  Really powerful.  As an Apostle who had seen a great deal, Paul realized that the Lord had great plans among the believers in Colosse.  His strong leading was to join Pastor Epaphras in earnest prayer for the Colossians.

      There are four parts to this magnificent prayer, so we are going to take it slow.  We can almost see Paul greeting Pastor Epaphras when he visited the prison.  We can hear the clank of the chains as Paul listened to the concern of this pastor for his flock and then joined hands and hearts to wrestle together in prayer for the Colossian believers.

      On their knees, Paul's priority was to pray for God to fill you with knowledge of His will through spiritual wisdom and understanding.  

       Sometimes we don't need things changed as much as we need understanding.  If we can know with assurance that the hard time, we are going through has meaning it makes all the difference in the world.  If we can know that there is a bigger picture and we are indeed part of it, then our little portion makes a difference.

       One of the primary benefits of the transformed life is the opportunity to know God and His will.  While we will not know all of the will of the Lord, Paul surely understood our need and desire to have some idea of what God is up to in our lives!  We experience this when we experience God.

       Paul had exhorted the believers in Rome… "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 12:2).  As transformed believers, we are set free from the pattern of the world and privileged to know the will of God for us.  We don't have to think like the world anymore!  That is good news!  We can be transformed by the renew of our mind and know the mind of God and His will for us.   

      To be "filled" with the knowledge of God's will means that His direction will permeate all of our being--thoughts, affections, purposes, and plans.  We will know the momentum and movement of His Spirit.  There is a fullness in this flow that is unmistakable. We know that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, even if there is difficulty in the place where we stand.  This was the earnest desire and prayer of the Apostle.

     Paul prayed for the believers in Colosse to discover the fullness of God's will "through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.”  Wisdom and understanding are the gift from God by which we discern more and more of God and His will.   Practical wisdom and discernment are the tools through which God guides us in the testing and approving of God's will.

      What a powerful prayer, and we are just getting started.  This is my prayer for you today-- May God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 

 

      Father God, give to us, the Body of Christ, the believers of today, a knowledge of You that will lead us in all spiritual wisdom and understanding to the full knowledge of You and Your will.  In Jesus' Name.

 

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The Words of Faith devotion is published five days a week by E-mail, and our website, and our church app, excluding Federal holidays. Please feel free to forward this devotion to a friend who might be blessed by this devotion. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is quoted from the New International Version (R) of The Holy Bible. Copyright (c) 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Words of Faith (c) 1997, 2010 Jeffrey D. Hoy. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to forward this copyrighted material or use portions of it with appropriate notation of the source for non-profit purposes.  

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