Multicolored Worship

“And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy…” – Colossians 1:9-11

Lord Jesus, we pray this prayer of Paul over ourselves today. We do not wish for a subtle splash of the knowledge of Your will to mist upon us. No, like the Apostle, we long to be filled with the knowledge of Your will.  A valuable nugget of spiritual wisdom and understanding will not suffice us today – again, like Paul, we desire to have imparted to us full wisdom and all spiritual understanding.  A little of that simply will not do if You are to answer our desire that we might be made to walk in a manner worthy of You, fully pleasing to You, fruitful for You in all our good works.  We do not wish for the fields of our hearts to bring about pitiful harvests, so far beneath Your glorious worth.  Lord Jesus, increase us in the knowledge of God.  Please do this, not simply from reading our bibles, which is unspeakably good, but also from personally encountering You. Worship is ashen if You are not present. Apart from Your moving among us, worship is little more than imaginary play time. It is monochrome mechanics instead of polychromatic bursts of spiritual radiance. It is too common for us to be satisfied too quickly with the positive feelings of worshiping You – the thrills of the songs which move us, the joy in the sense of oneness that we have with other Christians present with us, the sense of purpose which comes when we use the gifts which You give us in ministry. These good things are sometimes the measuring stick by which we determine if we have met with You on the Lord’s Day. But we hunger for more. We ask that You color our movements with meaningfulness. Paul prayed for our brothers and sisters at Colossae, that they would experience strength in You, with all power, according to the measure of Your glorious might. Surely we will know when You are moving in us in this way. Surely we will not have to wonder if we met with God when this dynamic is active among us.  Oh, Lord Jesus, can we truly believe that we are growing worshipers if we do not manifest those last three things which Paul prayed for? If there is no ongoing endurance, are we truly Yours? In the absence of our patience with others, do we dare call ourselves Your disciples? And then there is that beautiful coloring of joy upon our hearts and lives. If there is no joy to beautify our souls, then we are spiritually gray, covered in a layer of Bible-belted religious ash. 

No wonder, my King, that the apostle prayed daily for these things. They are the beautiful, multicolored jewels in our testimony’s crown. We pray along with Paul today that these things (and more than these!) would be visibly present in our gatherings. We will not trifle with such an unspeakable privilege as to gather in the name of the Sovereign Son of God. You are royal and eternal! You are beautiful and impossibly mighty! You have ruined us for this world’s offers, and we can find no greater satisfaction than what we continually find in You.  Please do not let us settle for less today.  I ask for and rightly expect You to be who You truly are: glorious, loving, powerful, all-consuming, healing, saving, delivering and gracious. We do not wish to look at these attributes in a book. We want to see them painted on the canvas of our lives as we come in Your name today. Give us the longings for Yourself more than thrills, practical results, momentary flashes of insight, or any of those lesser things which sometimes become impressive things.  We pray for that single-eye to be in us, that vision which allows the best light to fill our being.

We look to You.