Praying For What God Wants

We take time each day to pray and ask God for various things.  What confidence do we have that it makes a difference.  Here’s what God’s own word says about that:

This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  1 John 5:14

There are many things we wonder about whether they are God’s will or not.  We want certain things.  What is God’s will in the middle of all that is going on?  When we don’t know for sure, we simply entrust ourselves to God’s care and ask, as we’re instructed in the Lord’s Prayer to pray:

Your kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

But there are many things that we can pray with real confidence that we know are God’s will.  We find them scattered throughout the Bible.  Here are some thoughts from the letter to the Colossians in chapter 2 that can help us know how to pray God’s will today.

Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. 

Colossians 2:6-7

We do ask You God that You would root us and build us up in our trust and faith in You.  Help us to be strong in putting into practice what we have read in Your word, heard through pastors and Bible teachers

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.        Colossians 2:8

Protect us Lord from these hollow and deceptive philosophies which depend on human tradition and those that put information out to consolidate their own opinions, or power and influence.  You promise that we would live in freedom when we live in the truth and that’s what we long for today. 

We live in confidence that as we live in You, Jesus, and allow You to live fully in us, that we will be complete and our joy will be rich.  Thank You for the clarity of Your will that we can walk in today.  Amen