(To watch the video teaching on this section of the study, click here!)
How do you pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ?
If I’m being perfectly honest, my prayers for my fellow Christians are often far more concerned with their immediate circumstances than with their spiritual vitality.
I often pray for their physical wellbeing or that God will take away their struggles. I often pray for ease in their relationships and success in their endeavors.
This is not how Paul prays for the believers in Colossae.
Like all first century letters, Paul includes the customary “wish” for the good health of his recipients. But unlike most letters of the time, Paul’s wish is actually a prayer. And he is far more concerned with their spiritual health than he is with their physical health.
Paul’s prayer for the believers in Colossae is a description of what it looks like for spiritually healthy believers to thrive.
And thrive is exactly what Paul wants the church in Colossae to do.
Filled with Knowledge
The believers in Colossae were not made new so that they might keep their heads down and merely survive until the second coming of Christ. And neither were we.
In the second part of Paul’s introduction, he describes to the believers in Colossae what it is that he (and Timothy and presumably Epaphras and others who are working with Paul) prays for them. And he does not merely pray these things once, but the way Paul describes it, he and his team have not ceased to pray for them (vs 9).
The first thing Paul says that he prays for the Colossians is that they may be filled with the knowledge of [God’s] will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding (vs. 9). Paul’s first concern is not the Colossians’ hearts but their minds.
I love to quote Jen Wilkin when she says, “the heart cannot love what the mind does not know.” It is important that the Colossians know and understand with their minds what they believe. Not only that, but Paul prays that they will also be filled with the knowledge of God’s will for how they should be living.
But how does one become filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding?
To know God’s will we must first know God’s character. And to know God’s character we must come to know him in the way in which he has chosen to reveal himself. And he has chosen to reveal himself to us through his Word (more on this in the application below).
So As To
But being filled with the knowledge of God for the sake of being filled with knowledge is purposeless. The knowledge of God’s will must be followed by the living out of that will.
Paul knows this and he prays that the Colossians would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will so as to be able to do the following things:
walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him (vs. 10a)
Walking in a manner worthy of the Lord means walking in obedience to his commands. What are God’s commands? Jesus summed them up in Matthew 22:37-40:
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.
To walk in a manner worthy of the Lord means that the Colossians will love God with everything they are and love their neighbors as themselves.
bearing fruit in every good work (10b)
What kind of fruit does a thriving believer bear? Galatians 5 holds the answer:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law (vs. 22-23)
Bearing the fruit of the spirit helps the Colossians to also bear the fruit of proclaiming the gospel and bringing others to Christ.
increasing in the knowledge of God (vs. 10c)
Paul prays that the Colossians might be filled with the knowledge of God’s will so that they might bear fruit and continue to increase in their knowledge of God. Greater knowledge of God increases the desire for more and more knowledge of God. The more the Colossians know God the more of God they will want to know. This is what Paul prays for them.
being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might (vs. 11a)
Paul knows that the Colossians do not possess within themselves the ability to do any of the things for which he prays. It is only by being strengthened through the power of the Holy Spirit that the Colossians can have any hope for thriving as believers. The indication here is that increasing in the knowledge of God is the means by which the Colossians are strengthened – all according to the glorious might of God.
for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father (11b, 12a)
Not only will the Spirit strengthen the believers in Colossae through his power, but he will strengthen them that they might endure the trials that come with patience and joy. This is what Paul desires for them. Not that they won’t face trials, because he knows they will, but that they might be given the strength to endure the trials patiently and joyfully. And that when they do, they give thanks to God the Father for the strength he provided that enabled them to endure.
How is thriving possible?
The things that Paul prays for the Colossians are the very things that every believer desires to display in their lives. Who wouldn’t want to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him? Who doesn’t want to bear fruit in every good work? Who wouldn’t want to endure the trials of this life, not just patiently but also with joy?
These characteristics of a thriving Christian life might seem too good to be true. Perhaps it leaves the Colossians asking (and might leave us asking too) how such a thriving life is even possible in the lives of believers.
Without missing a beat, Paul reminds his readers just how this thriving comes about in their lives. It is possible only because God the Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints of light. He has delivered 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 (vs. 12b-14).
Thriving as a believer is only possible because of the blood of Jesus. Paul reminds the Colossians, as he did in the beginning of chapter 1, that they are no longer who they once were. They have been transferred from the darkness to the light. They have been redeemed and forgiven and are now a part of the family of God. Their lives should reflect that and Paul prays that they will. Far more important than their physical well being or any circumstantial problems that they might be facing, Paul’s prayer for them is that they might live out the radically transformed, thriving lives they were created for because they themselves have been radically transformed.
Application: Increase in Knowledge
Paul and his team did not cease to pray that the Colossians might be filled with the knowledge of God’s will so that they might thrive as believers. It is the Spirit who enabled the thriving, but the Colossians had a part to play in order to walk faithfully, bear fruit, increase in the knowledge of God, and endure trials with patience and joy. They were not to sit idle. They were to fill themselves with the knowledge of God.
The same is true for us today. We have active roles in our thriving as believers. We too must be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding in order to thrive. Increasing in the knowledge of God’s will involves increasing in our knowledge of God himself.
The question we must ask ourselves then is: how are we actively increasing in the knowledge of God? There are several ways that help us increase in the knowledge of God.
To know God more, we must:
- Spend quality time in God’s Word – Isn’t it amazing that God has chosen to reveal himself to us in a book? He does not leave us guessing about his character, his will, and the things that are important to him. He tells us about himself in a variety of creative and amazing ways through the words of the Bible. To know God is to know what he says about himself in his Word.
- Pray – How will we respond to what God has revealed? We pour out our hearts to him in prayer. Through prayer we are drawn closer to our Creator and our hearts are transformed to become more like his. God uses our repeated, persistent prayers to conform our will to his.
- Invest in and be fed by the local church – As the body of Christ we are called to encourage, admonish, strengthen, and build up one another. Thriving as a believer and knowing more and more of God is never done in isolation. To increase in the knowledge of God’s will we must be actively joined to the members of his body.
Today, if you find that you are not thriving as a believer, that you are not walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, bearing fruit in every good work, and enduring with patience and joy – ask yourself: how am I actively increasing in the knowledge of God? And then ask – Am I living out what I know to be true about God’s will for my life?
My prayer for you, fellow believer, is not that God would make your life easy. It is not that God would smooth over all of your unpleasant circumstances. It is not that you would have good physical health and success in all of your endeavors.
No, my prayer for you (and for myself), today, is that you might know more and more of God so that you might thrive as a new creation who has been redeemed by the blood of Christ.
You have been transferred from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of light. Go now and thrive in the light.
Questions for Discussion/Reflection
- What steps am I taking to actively fill myself with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding? What further steps do I need to take?
- What kind of things do I tend to pray for my Christian brothers and sisters? How can my prayers for fellow believers (and myself) better resemble Paul’s prayer for the Colossians?
- Am I currently thriving as a believer in Jesus? Why or why not?
To go back to Part 1 of this study: Colossians 1:1-8, click here.