
Paul didn’t pray for the insignificant… he prayed for the significant. He didn’t waste time with empty words but passionately poured out his prayers concerning spiritual, eternal matters.
You don’t hear Paul saying, “Oh Lord, be with Aunt Annie’s big toe…” or “God, I haven’t studied for my English exam, but I sure wish you could give me an A.”
If we want to pray bigger, bolder, better prayers, we should model our praying after Paul’s Biblical examples. Let’s pluck one phrase out of his prayer recorded in Philippians. Here’s the whole prayer:
“I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:9–11).
Paul prayed that his friends in Philippi would be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.”
Notice that Paul didn’t ask God to make his friends happy and healthy, comfortable and content. He asked God to work in their lives so that they would bring “glory and praise of God.” He wanted his friends to live with such moral purity that they would reflect God’s glory.
How? By being “filled with the fruit of righteousness.” This, of course, is the “fruit of the Spirit… love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).
Again, how? “The fruit of righteousness … comes through Jesus Christ. This fruit is only produced in the Christian’s life as we “abide.” “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:4–5, NKJV).
Paul challenges us to pray bigger, bolder, better prayers…
Lord, not by my power, but by Your grace, help me to bring You glory as You fill me with the fruit of righteousness…
“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).

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