Colossians 1 Guided Prayer 4.26.09 by Kelly Kang (Gracepoint Fellowship Church – Berkeley):

As many people in our congregation are new to the faith and have asked for help in developing their prayer lives, occasionally, I’ll be putting up these prayer guides that I sometimes write for our prayer meetings.  Here’s one from this past weekend.

3We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— 5the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel 6that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth. 7You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Thank God for the gospel that has come to you and the gospel that is “bearing fruit” through your life.  Thank God for all the changes that you have experienced through the gospel.

Thank God for the brothers and sisters in your life whose faith in Christ Jesus and love for the saints are a source of challenge and inspiration.  Pray for the Epaphras like people in your life  and pray a prayer of blessing for them, pray for great endurance and patience.

Pray for those who just recently became Christian to experience the gospel “bearing fruit and growing” in their life.  Pray especially for the 22 people that were baptized last Sunday.

Pray that it would always be true of Gracepoint Fellowship Church that the “gospel is bearing fruit and growing” in our midst, not only here in Berkeley but in Austin, Davis, Taiwan, and elsewhere that God sends us.

9For 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. 10And 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, 11being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 13For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Pray the prayer of vv.9-13 for yourself, for your family, for your leaders, for your friends, etc.

Pray about the idols and sins which prevent you from living “a life worthy of the LORD,” a life that is pleasing to God.  Pray to renounce your old ways  that belong to the “dominion of darkness.”

Affirm the eternal blessings that you have – “inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light,” salvation from the dominion of darkness, “redemption” and “the forgiveness of sins.”

Ask God to give you strength if you are experiencing struggle or suffering so that you may have “great endurance and patience” and be able to joyfully give thanks to God for the eternal things that cannot be taken away.

15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together^{.  18}And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Ascribe to God praise and honor that is due him.   Acknowledge unchanging truths about God – that you were “created by Him and for Him,” that in fact ALL things were “created by Him and for Him.”

Recommit to having Christ have “supremacy” in your life, be the “head” over all things – speech, time,  family,  finance, marriage, relationships, school, job…

Acknowledge that Christ is before all things and in him “all things hold together.”  Confess your anxieties and fears which lead to mistrust and clinging unto your life.   Renew your trust in Him for the things that you are having hard time trusting God with.

22But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—

Pray a prayer of thanksgiving for what Christ suffered in his physical body through death to make you “holy in God’s sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”

Pray for a greater faith in his complete forgiveness and cleansing, so that with confidence we can love others.

24Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—

Identify opportunities God has given you to suffer for the gospel and thank God for them.

Commit to suffering “for the sake of his body, which is the church” and become its servant.  Pray that God will open your eyes to specific ways that you can be a servant

28We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. 29To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

Pray for greater humility and submission so that God can use people in your life to present you mature in Christ.

Pray for love and courage so that you can be faithful to the people God placed in your life to admonish and teach and “present [them] perfect in Christ. ” Pray for “great endurance and patience.”  Ask God to give you more of his energy to powerfully work in you.