Colossians 1:9-14 (NIV)
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.
Paul’s principal prayer for the Colossian Christians, a group he had not met, was that they be filled with all the spiritual wisdom and understanding that they needed to be able to fully know God’s will. He fully understood that knowing God’s will is not something that can be determined using mere human logic or by casually thumbing through the Scriptures. It takes spiritual wisdom and insight that only comes through the work of the Holy Spirit, guiding people into all truth that is in Jesus (Ephesians 4 :2).
Paul also understood that the other blessings he was praying into the lives of the Colossian Christians could only come when they fully understood God’s will. This includes living lives worthy of Jesus and fully pleasing to God, because only by knowing God’s will can people do God’s will.
It includes bearing fruit in good works. Being closely connected to God so that His will can be expressed to them every moment enables them to obey every moment, shining light where God reveals darkness, bringing wholeness where God shows them brokenness, bringing peace where God shows them strife. These good works are only possible for those who know and do God’s will.
It includes being strengthened and empowered so that they can do what God makes possible, not just what people are able to do in their own strength. The problems facing the world in every age are too great to be solved by human wisdom and human machinations; they need the divine power that naturally and abundantly flows only through the lives of those who know and do God’s will.
And it includes abundance of endurance and patience. The work is slow and often frustrating. Much work is required to clear and prepare fallow ground, and a large investment of time, energy and prayer is needed before a harvest can be gathered. But for those who know and follow God’s will, endurance and patience are possible, because they don’t live their lives wondering if they are on the right track. They can know for sure that they are, because they are following God’s instructions each day, leaving the final results to Him.
The fuel for this work that is revealed through knowledge of God’s will is keeping at the front of their minds and hearts the work God has already done in their own lives. They can all remember that they were lost and hopeless when the gospel came to them, but that through their faith in Jesus, God had brought them from the darkness of sin into the Kingdom of Jesus, and that because of God’s great love and the sacrifice of Jesus, they had been qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints in God’s Kingdom. That’s powerful fuel!
Father, I agree that it is to those who know and do Your will that these divine gifts are granted. The disobedient and rebellious cannot hope to see them. And I thank You that You give them so freely to those who love You. It is a great privilege to play a part in Your plan to seek and to save what was lost (Luke 19:10), and to bring light to the dark places in our world. And, yes Lord, I do remember what You have done for me, reaching out to me when I was so lost, bringing me to Yourself, burning up my filthy rags of self-determination, sin and rebellion, and clothing me with a pure white robe of Your own righteousness. And that memory does provide powerful motivation, powerful fuel to move me forward in grateful obedience to Your will every moment, every day. Amen.