How To Pray Knowing God's Will

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.  We’d certainly like people to stop getting sick and dying from this covid-19 wouldn’t we?  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 1:6-7

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.  It’s so easy to know things and less easy to put them into practice.  But thank You that You are happy to support and build us up in that today. 

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 1:8

We need Your help, God, because we hear so many things from government, in news, in entertainment, in books, from friends and colleagues etc. that go against Your principles.  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. 

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.  Colossians 1:9-10

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