Paul’s Pattern For Prayer
The Apostle Paul offers us patterns, models for praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ. If you’ve ever been at a loss to know what to pray, you’ll find encouragement here.
By Gayle L. Schnepp
THE BIBLE study went well. We were open in our discussion and everyone found a personal application from Scripture. Then we shared our prayer requests. Though as leader I had asked for personal, spiritual needs we could pray for, everyone responded with a request for some friend or relative who was ill or in difficulty.
We prayed for these requests and said our good-byes, but still something was missing. We needed to pray for each other, not only for our friends. God wanted to meet our personal, spiritual needs as well as the physical needs of others. How could we pray for needs we knew nothing about? What was the key to praying effectively for each other so we would mature spiritually?
Later a friend shared with me some verses in Colossians one. She was praying them with her husband in mind, but I saw that they might be the prayer pattern we needed.
A PATTERN FOR PRAYER
In Col. 1:9–12, Paul wrote to commend the church at Colossae for its openness to the gospel, and then told the Christians there some specific things he would pray for as they sought to mature and develop in their new faith.
…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. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
Paul’s first prayer was for the knowledge of God’s will. Certainly we in our Bible study all needed to know God’s will. I knew of some specific decisions one person faced, and prayed that she would read her Bible and pray regularly to learn God’s plans. For the others, I prayed that God’s will would be unfolded as they daily faced perplexing issues. I prayed that regular times in the Scriptures would help to show all of us God’s ways and enable us to form convictions about spiritual values.
A WORTHY LIFE
A life that was worthy of the Lord and fully pleasing to Him was Paul’s next petition for the Colossian Christians, and I made it mine for our group. Much was involved in living the holy way God desired, and I prayed that step by step each of us would walk in it.
I prayed for some of the unspoken needs I perceived in our group, such as how to be modest inwardly and outwardly, how to handle gossip, how to honor God with our time despite the many demands on it.
Knowing we all were active in many areas, I prayed that others would be changed through knowing us. Paul called it “bearing fruit,” the result of others’ seeing a Christian’s good works in Christ’s name.
ENDURANCE
Certainly if the Colossians needed endurance and patience, so did we. Paul knew it would take God’s strengthening and God’s power for the Colossians to endure the persecutions of the early Church. There were pitfalls facing us, too: pressures to conform to worldly standards, temptations to overschedule ourselves and not leave time for study and meditation on God’s Word, and a tendency to be satisfied with each plateau we reached in our spiritual growth.
Joyful thanksgiving was the final thing Paul asked God on behalf of the Colossians. I prayed, too, that joy and thankfulness would come from each heart as we pondered the great position to which God had elevated us in Christ.
After some time of praying the pattern outlined in Colossians, I shared with one member about the verses I had used to pray for all of us. She was encouraged and asked me to pray about more specific needs.
As others in the group learned of the prayer pattern, they, too, grew in understanding of the importance of sharing their specific needs. We saw how praying by this pattern could give strength and purpose to our prayer lives, and could help us grow to appreciate more the prayers of others.
