“Giving thanks unto the Father.” This is the crowning grace for which the Apostle prays—thankfulness. How much it means. The heart full of gratitude and gladness, the life full of brightness and buoyancy, the character full of vitality and vigour. The joy of the Lord is, indeed, the strength of His people, and when this element of thanksgiving characterises our life, it gives tone to everything else, and crowns all other graces.
4. The Character of the Prayer.
We have seen what the Apostle desired for the Christians of Colosse, and in so doing we have learnt some of the deepest secrets of Christian living. It remains to notice the characteristics of this prayer, in order that our prayers may be taught and guided and inspired with power.
His prayer was urgent—“Since the day we heard.” From the moment the tidings came by Epaphras of the Christian life in Colosse the Apostle’s heart went up to God in prayer.
His prayer was incessant—“Do not cease to pray.” Again and again he asked, and kept on asking, so fully was his heart drawn out in prayer for these Christians whom he had never seen.
His prayer was intense—“And to desire.” This was no mere lip service. His heart had evidently been stirred to its core by the tidings of the Christian life at Colosse, and as he heard of their faith, their love, their hope, their holiness, their service, a deep, intense, longing desire came into his soul to seek for still fuller and deeper blessing on their behalf. What a man he was, and what prayers his were!
His prayer was offered in fellowship with others—“Since the day we heard.” Timothy was associated with the Apostle in these petitions. United prayer is one of the greatest powers in the Christian Church. “If two of you shall agree as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done.” Personal prayer is precious, united prayer is still more powerful.
Thus in these verses we have one of the fullest, deepest and most precious of the Apostle’s prayers, and as we consider its union of thought and experience, of profound teaching and equally profound revelation of Christian life, we learn two of the most urgent and necessary lessons for the Christian life to-day.
The first of these shall be given in the words of Bishop Moule: “Beware of untheological devotion.” If devotion is to be real it should be characterised by thought. There is no contradiction between mind and heart, between theology and devotion. Devotional hours do not mean hours when thought is absent. Meditation is not abstraction, nor is devotion dreaminess. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind” is an essential part of the commandment. If genuine thought and equally genuine theology do not characterise our hours of devotion, we lose some of the most precious opportunities of grace and blessing. A piety which is mere pietism, an evangelicalism which does not continually ponder the profound truths of the New Testament, can never be strong or do any deep service. We must beware of “untheological devotion.”
We must also beware of “undevotional theology.” This is the opposite error, and constitutes an equally great danger. A hard, dry, intellectual study of theology will yield no spiritual fruit. Accuracy in knowledge of Greek, careful balancing of aspects of truth, large knowledge of the doctrinal verities of the New Testament, are all essential and valuable; but unless they are permeated by a spirit of devotion they will fail at the crucial point. Pectus facit theologum—it is the heart that makes the theologian; and a theology which does not spring from spiritual experience is doomed to decay, to deadness, and therefore to disaster.