Big Idea - God invites us and even commands us to pray. We have amazing access to God and an invitation to ask for His help in our time of need. There is power in prayer to move the hand of God to act and move on our behalf and on behalf of others. But what can we pray for? What should we be praying for? James tells us in James 4:3 that "You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." Are we asking and not receiving? Is it because we are asking for the wrong things? What do we ask God for? Often, our prayers are for God to change our outward circumstances when we are in difficult or painful circumstances. We pray for God to heal us when we are sick, to provide for us when we are in need, to solve relationship problems, or to fix some other problem we are facing. These are real needs, and we are to pray for these things. But are these our only needs? Are these our most important needs? Or should we be praying along a different line? We pray for ourselves, and we are to pray for one another. But what if our circumstances in life are good? Do we then run out of things to pray for? The things we pray for become a kind of mirror that reveals to us the things we are most concerned about. Are we most concerned about the right things? If we evaluate our prayer life against that of the saints in Scripture, how do the things we are concerned about measure up against what they are most concerned about?

In the many payers of Paul recorded in the Bible, we see what he is most concerned about. Whereas I am often focused on praying for God to change my circumstances, Paul is focused on praying for God to change us in the midst of our circumstances. His concern is not so much for how we are doing but who we are becoming and how we live, regardless of the outward challenges or difficulties. In his prayer in Colossians 1, Paul prays for three things. First, he prays that they would have the right knowledge, namely, knowing what to do and how to live. Secondly, he prays or them to be strengthened with the right power so they can do the right thing. Third, he prays for them to have the right attitude so that their right living will not be a matter of legalism or empty moralism but one of worship and response to the goodness of God in their life.