Do you need encouragement in your prayer life? We are studying another powerful prayer of Paul to believers from the first chapter of Colossians.

Paul is talking about a knowledge that goes deep into the very fabric of who you are in your affections, your feelings and in your mind.

What is this knowledge—this deep intimacy with the Almighty that he's calling us to? It's the knowledge of what God's will is:

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light.

For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." >>Watch on YouTube

Dr. Mark Gignilliat is professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School, where he teaches courses in Old Testament and Hebrew, and also serves as theologian in residence at St. Peter's Anglican Church in Birmingham. Mark is married to Naomi, and they have four children.