Sep 06, 2024 The Benefits of Giving Thanks in Our Prayers – Words of Grace Blog – September 6, 2024
This week will be our third consideration of Paul’s opening prayer in Colossians 1:3-14. One thing I have noticed is how he begins and ends his prayer with thanksgiving to God. If we follow Paul’s pattern, our prayers and our lives will be changed.
In the prayer, Paul begins by thanking God for the graces he has heard are in the lives of the Christians in Colossae. Faith in Christ and love for each other based on the hope of heaven are the fruits of God’s grace toward them. Then he closes the prayer with thanksgiving for the grace of God in Christ. In Christ, God has qualified us for an inheritance in light, delivered us from darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of his Son.
What benefit is there to us if we practice gratitude for God’s grace in prayer?
By giving thanks to God in prayer, we focus our prayers on God’s grace.
Prayer would be worth the time and effort if all we did was enjoy God and revel in his love and mercy. Yes, we ask him for our needs because he commands us to. Asking expresses our trust and is a means of receiving. But I suspect that if we came to God with a request but forgot to make it because we never got past the thanksgiving, he would know our need and respond to our intended prayer anyway. He is, after all, our heavenly Father who already knows what we need (Matthew 6:32).
By giving thanks to God in prayer, we humble ourselves before him.
Nothing humbles the heart more than knowing we have received what we could never secure on our own. This is not humiliation, it is humility. Humility is a sweet disposition of the heart that leads to joy and energy in life. It is a prerequisite to love, and it is expressed in gratitude. I believe that if we give thanks for God’s grace, we can train the heart to be humble. And God gives more grace to the humble (James 4:6).
By giving thanks to God in prayer, we become more confident that he hears us.
Our minds are important in our prayers. That’s why we are to renew them in truth. Minds filled with falsehood and focused on circumstances don’t pray with confidence. But when our thoughts are on the truth of God’s grace in Christ, not only do we give thanks, but we also pray big prayers with confidence that he hears us (1 John 5:14). When we give thanks to God for giving us his Son, we will be assured that with his Son he will give us all we need (Romans 8:32).
At first, beginning and ending our prayers with thanksgiving may seem like a formality. And doing so could become a formula for getting what we want. But if we slow down our prayers, focus on Christ, think on his grace, and give thanks, we need not fear falling into these traps. Our prayers will soar.
Think on these things this weekend. I look forward to seeing you Sunday.
-Scott