COLOSSIANS 4:2

“Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;”

Call me weird (and many people do, lol) but when I read this verse the song “Hopelessly Devoted to You” came to mind. Remember that song from the movie “Grease,” starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton John? They were so in love and vowed to spend their lives together.

Paul is not talking about teenage love when he talks about devotion in today’s verse. He is talking about us being totally and steadfastly devoted to prayer. The Greek word translated “devote” is proskartereó, which comes from pros (towards, interactively with ) and karteréō (show steadfast strength). I really like how HELPS Word Studies defines this word. “To consistently show strength which prevails (in spite of difficulties); to endure (remain firm), staying in a fixed direction.”

APPLICATION

Are you that way in prayer? My problem is I can be so easily distracted. My phone is the worst culprit. If it dings, I look at it. So, I have learned to silence it and lay it face down. We men are such visual creatures. It doesn’t take much to draw our attention away from what is truly important.

We see proskartereó used in Acts 2:42 where it says, “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Don’t you want to be like that? I do. I read a quote the other day that said, “Prayer is not preparation for battle; it is the battle.” I really like that.

Proskartereó is also used in Romans 12:12. In a large list of things (Paul loved lists, lol) he says, “devoted to prayer.” I wonder how much time Paul spent in prayer. I bet a lot, but he probably thought he could have prayed more. We all do, don’t we? Even Jesus was devoted to prayer, getting up early to spend time with the Father (Mark 1:35). Let’s be like Him.

Father, time spent in prayer is time spent with You, the Maker and Creator of the universe. What a privilege.