A “Yes” from God

1 Corinthians 1:4-9

⁴ I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, ⁵ that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— ⁶ even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— ⁷ so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁸ who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

As noted yesterday, this letter is address to a city filled with vile sin and degradation. But Paul doesn’t allow that to color his opening comments. In these 5 verses we find the most positive affirmations of the faith and a prayer of blessing for the church. These verses are pure joy.

Most of Paul’s epistles open with a prayer similar to this one. Paul is obviously a man with a pastoral heart, for when he says, “I give thanks to my God always . . .” you know that this is a man who prays regularly and fervently for the church. And the passion with which he writes causes me to believe that he also prays for individual people by name – he desires God’s blessings for these people so much that he is willing to spend his prayer time on their behalf (although I suspect the amount of time Paul designated toward prayer was huge). The substance of this prayer is what makes it so remarkable, for it is not a prayer asking for material blessings, good health, or prosperity. No – this prayer is all about God extending blessings to our spirits.

One of the finest spiritual disciplines available to us is that of praying the Scriptures and this is a practice I believe we spend far too little time exercising. The pronouns in this prayer can be filled in with the name of anyone you want to pray for and because this is God’s Word, the answer to this prayer is already a “Yes!”

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ve already walked this path with me as we’ve studied other Epistles. Read through these verses again and change up the pronouns to be the name of someone you love or someone who maybe doesn’t know Jesus but you are praying that they will come to know Him. Or perhaps you want to pray this prayer for yourself. And here’s the boldest idea – pray this prayer for your enemies or maybe even someone who doesn’t like you. If we believe in the power of prayer, how can we think we will see anything except grace-filled answers? Changes will occur and most of them will be in the person doing the praying. Umm – that would be you!

So, maybe some of your prayer time would look like this:

I give thanks to my God always for Samuel because of the grace of God that was given him in Christ Jesus, that in every way Samuel is enriched in Him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed in Samuel — so that Samuel is not lacking in any gift, as he waits for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain him to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God is faithful, by whom Samuel was called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Of course, you would insert the name of the person laid on your heart at this time. I use my grandson as the example, for I pray for all 5 of my grandchildren daily. But you get the idea. And if you exercise this prayer often enough, you will have it memorized and it will be yours to use whenever someone comes across your mind. God gives us some pretty cool gifts and this is one of them!