"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth; just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit. For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." ~Colossians 1:1-14
Paul (the author of Colossians) sure gives my brain a workout trying to make sense out of his run-on sentences! I am not much of an English/grammar person (as you can probably tell if you ever read this blog :-P) but I actually kind of find sentence diagraming fun with Paul's letters because they get so long and complicated. Anyway... a couple of things stuck out to me this week while studying these verses; grace and how Paul prays for the Colossian believers.
Grace.
Paul opens the letter by writing, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father." He wants his letter to bring grace to the Colossians. Paul is not afraid to call sin, sin, and to rebuke believers when it is needed, but from the very beginning of his letter he wants the Colossians to know that his intent is to communicate grace to them.
Later in the passage Paul says that a key aspect of understanding the gospel message is understanding the grace of God. After all, that is what the gospel is all about; God offering us grace through Jesus Christ. We are all sinners by nature, none of us are worthy of heaven, but God offers us grace, giving us what we do not deserve, an inheritance (heaven) by redeeming us through Christ.
I imagine Paul wants to communicate grace to the Colossians because a key aspect of God's message is grace. Grace is not candy-coating everything or turning a blind eye to sin, but it does involve choosing to show love (the fruit of the gospel message according to this passage) even when we encounter those who do not deserve it (as none of do).
This week God has challenged me to think about my interaction and communication with others. Are my words and actions towards others full of grace? Is my intent when sharing my faith opinions to bring grace to those who hear or just to prove my point?
Prayer for the believers.
I learned so much from the way Paul prays for the Colossian believers. These are people that he doesn't even know. He heard of their faith second hand. Yet, he prays "always" for them. Since he is praying for people he doesn't specifically know, I imagine his prayer can be applied pretty generally to believers, and I imagine he requests for them the things which he finds of utmost importance for Christians. He makes two major requests in his prayer and gives explanation for those requests.
Request 1: Knowledge of God's will. Paul ask's for this knowledge for the Colossians so that they can "walk in a manner worthy of the Lord," meaning so that they can live in such a way that their lives are a good representation of what they claim to believe. If we do not know God's will (which we can discover through prayerful study of His Word), then there is no way for us to accurately represent Him in our lives.
Request 2: Strengthened with power. Paul ask's for God to strengthen the Colossians with His power so they can be steadfast and patient. Of all the things Paul could ask for, initially I wondered why he thought it was so important to ask for strength so they could be steadfast and patient. As I thought about it, it made more sense to me. Often times it takes patience to see the positive results of doing God's will and at those times we need God's supernatural strength to help us be steadfast and do what is right even when it is hard and seems like it isn't even making a difference.
As a parent, I find God's supernatural strength and patience to persevere in doing His will raising my child as necessary on a daily basis! Often times it takes months to see positive results and many times I am tempted to give up because it feels like what I do doesn't matter. This same sentiment applied when I was a teacher and I'm sure it applies to whatever your current role in life is!
Paul ends his prayer with joyous thanks for redemption and the inheritance we have. This is a good reminder that even praying and making requests to God is a privilege made possible by God's redemptive work through Jesus.
In light of what I have learned from Paul's prayer, this week I am praying for my friends and family and our whole faith community including other believers I have never even meet modeled after this prayer.
I am looking forward to what I will learn in week 2! You can join me by downloading the 8-week GMG Colossians reading plan here.
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