Read with Me Wednesdays: Chapters 6 of “A call to Spiritual Reformation.”

At church at the moment we are reading through the “A Call to Spiritual Reformation.” It is a brilliant book on the topic of prayer. I am growing allot through it.

Summary of Chapter 6 – The Content of a Challenging prayer

In this chapter Carson takes the prayer of Paul in Colossians 1:9-14 and challenges us to pray in this manner.  From this prayer Carson observes:

1.  Paul prays for Christians he has never personally. A good question to ask yourself is how extensive is our own praying?

2.  Paul prays unceasingly.   Carson notes that there are some things for which we should not stop praying. Prayer is God’s appointed means for appropriating the blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus. Many of those blessings we need again and again.

3.  Paul links prayers of thanksgiving to prayers of petition.  Although we are inclined to pray for people and situations when they have fallen into desperate need, Paul’s common practice is to pray for ongoing concerns. His thanksgiving drives his petitions.

4.  Paul asks God to fill believers with the knowledge of his will. This will is not necessarily God’s sovereign will (e.g. whom you should marry etc…). But rather Paul is talking about the moral will of God. The way that God wants his people to live.

5.  The purpose of Paul’s petition is that believers might be utterly pleasing to the Lord Jesus. Although Believers are “in Christ” and therefore are justified and accepted before God – believers can live in a way that is either pleasing or not pleasing to God. We should be praying that believers might live lives that are fully pleasing to our God.

6.  Paul sketches, in terms of four characteristics, what a life pleasing to the Lord looks like.

• Christians bear fruit in every good work.
• Christians grow in the knowledge of God.
• Christians are strengthened so as to display great endurance and patience.
• Christians joyfully give thanks to the Father.

Here are his questions for review and reflection.

1. Granted that one aim in praying is that you might be utterly pleasing to the Lord Jesus, what concrete things in your own life should you be praying about?
2. What praying do you do for believers you have never met? How can you improve in this area?
3. What connections do joyful thanksgiving and faithful endurance have with prayer?