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- Truth Today: Colossians 1:11
Truth Today: Colossians 1:11
being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of all patience and steadfastness, joyfully
This verse continues what Paul sees as the result of being filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. He said it is important so that we would be strengthened with all power.
Here and from the proceeding verses, we see that knowledge of God is linked with power, which is based on God's glorious might, and is demonstrated when you display patience and steadfastness with joy.
Your power is evident in the display of patience and steadfastness marked with joy, and not in how forcefully you can strike someone else.
Being filled with the knowledge of God means possessing power, steadfastness, and patience.
Therefore, instead of focusing on power, worrying about a lack of steadfastness and patience, perhaps focusing on the knowledge of God is what is important.
Again, rather than telling them that this is a bunch of information I want you to acquire about God, Paul prayed about it.
Prayer is an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of God and our utter dependence on Him, not on the arm of flesh, our own schemes and machinations, or dependence on others and seeing them as our source.
We are supposed to hold on to Christ and Him alone (Colossians 2:19) and grow into Christ and Him alone (Ephesians 4:15).
We see God rebuke the Israelites for depending on human resources and not on God (Jeremiah 17:5). Even for spiritual things, we might start depending on schemes and methods and leave the place of prayer.
Being strengthened is good, resilience is good, and Paul wanted those for the Colossian Christians. How did he presume to achieve it? Through prayer; prayer and nothing else.
He starts the letter with prayer, and that is a lesson in and of itself.
For the ultimate exemplar of prayer, we need to start with Jesus, seeing that a key part of the Christian life is dependence on God.
The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1-14). Everything He taught them was about acknowledgment of the Father and words to indicate dependence on Him for everything, whether mundane or esoteric.
That is the opposite of leaning on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6). Trusting in the Lord starts with reorienting our hearts toward Him in the place of prayer, and this reorientation facilitates our trust in Him. One reinforces the other.
Paul starts the letter with a prayer. He does not explicitly tell you to start your day in prayer, but he hints at its priority. Paul's prayers give us insight into the will of the Father for us.
The will of the Father is that the gospel bears fruit, that we grow in His knowledge, that we are empowered through His glorious might, with us having steadfastness and patience.
It is also clear that these things are components of Christian maturity, aspects of "attaining to the measure of Christ's full stature” (Ephesians 4:13).
This means it's not enough to simply become a Christian and sign your name on the dotted line of a decision sheet, as it were. Rather, it is the beginning of a journey, of a race (Hebrews 12:1).
Therefore, the kinds of prayers that Paul prays do not have an endpoint. You don't stop praying them. You can pray them for yourself and for others today, tomorrow, and the day after, never wondering if they are in the will of God. It is the will of God as revealed through Paul, an apostle. We have the guarantee that it is the will of God.
Jesus said a disciple is not greater than his teacher and that it is enough for the disciple to become like his master (Matthew 10:24-25). With Jesus as our aim, we will always have a long way to go, and the journey is the delight.
People desire power and the feeling of being on top, but they often lack steadfastness and patience. However, for Christians, steadfastness is actually a form of power.
In Paul's prayers, we see Christian character traits emerge: steadfastness and patience. Steadfastness and patience signify firmness and the ability to remain unmoved (1 Corinthians 15:58), regardless of what challenges arise. All of this can be achieved through prayer.
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