As I write these words, an impromptu prayer meeting that began after a chapel service at Asbury College in Kentucky had been going nonstop for more than a week. There have been many reports of blessing and a sense of the presence of the Lord.

I doubt that the apostle Paul would have been surprised by this. In today’s reading, we get a snapshot of Paul’s lifestyle of prayer. Every time Colossians came to mind, he gave thanks for them (v. 3). Located in the Lycus valley near the city of Laodicea, Colosse, had fallen on hard times by Paul’s day. But of even greater concern was a form of teaching that had begun to creep into the church. Paul does not give many details in this letter. He is more interested in dwelling on the truth than in detailing all the false tenets of something he describes as a “hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8).

Paul’s prayers for the Colossians focused primarily on two things. The apostle prayed that the Holy Spirit would grant them wisdom and understanding to know how they should live. He also asked that God’s Spirit would strengthen them with power so that they would live out the truth as it was revealed to them (1:9–12). Paul did not pray for them to live this way in order to be redeemed. They were already saved. He prayed this way because redemption had already come to them through Christ. Jesus had already “qualified” them to “share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light” (v. 12).

>> This lifestyle is as possible for us as it was for the Colossians. God “has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (v. 13). In Christ, we have redemption, which Paul defines further in verse 14 as “the forgiveness of sins.”

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