“For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you, have not ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may live worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects — bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of all patience and steadfastness, joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Colossians 1.9-14
There is so much going on here, isn’t there?
Paul and Timothy have not ceased praying for the Colossians since they learned of the church, specifically that they would be filled with the knowledge of [God’s] will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. If this were all there was in this passage we could pause and say: are you praying for those in your life like this?
But that is not all there is.
We read that the Colossians are being prayed for so that [they] may live worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects by bearing fruit in every good deed and growing in the knowledge of God and being strengthened with all power. Still not finished we read that the life that pleases God and is strengthened by Him displays patience and steadfastness and that it joyfully [gives] thanks to the Father. If this were all that was written here we might pause and say: well, are we living worthily of the Lord? Are we growing in the knowledge of God? Are we joyfully giving thanks to the Father?
But that is not all there is.
We read on and see that our joyful thanksgiving, the product of the strength and power of God working in us as we live for Him, is focused on something specific:
“He delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
The crux of this passage – of our faith in general – is right there: the forgiveness of sins. Paul and Timothy are praying, the Colossians are living, loving, growing, and knowing because of the Son…in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
We don’t need to stop after each thought and challenge ourselves to do this or do that.
When we read our Bibles as being about us, we can fall into this trap. Instead, our Bibles are (primarily) about God, about the Lord Jesus, about His Spirit. When we read with this focus, we can simply marvel at the truth that this life we live, a life of prayer, wisdom, understanding, good deeds, knowledge, strength, power, patience, steadfastness, joy, thanks, inheritance, deliverance, light, love, and redemption are ours through the forgiveness of sins alone and the Son.
James Travis 