1:9 — 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.
It is God’s desire that we would walk in His will and obey Him. And knowing His plan for our lives is a treasure because it prevents us from wasting our time and talents on things that will not matter in eternity. So when we pray for others, it is appropriate that we ask for His purpose to be fulfilled in them and that they would see every situation from His viewpoint—because this is life at its very best, and there’s absolutely nothing that compares with it.
What the Bible Says About
Charles Finney, a nineteenth-century American evangelist, sometimes wrestled with what to say in prayer. One day an acquaintance of his fell deathly ill. She did not know Christ, and her husband asked Finney to pray for her. Finney immediately became burdened for the woman, but he did not know how to pray.
Finally, after grasping for the right words, Finney received a breakthrough. He said he “was enabled to roll the burden upon” God and that he immediately felt sure the woman would not die. Not long afterwards, the woman made a full recovery and committed her life to Christ.
Like Finney, we must intercede for others according to God’s will and believe in faith He will answer us (Heb. 11:6).
As an example to believers, Paul often included powerful prayers in his letters. We find one of them in Colossians 1:9–12. In seven requests, Paul covers every area of our lives that need the Lord’s daily touch:
1. May we be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding (v. 9). Ask God to fill you with the spiritual discernment you need as you walk in His will and study His Word.
2. May we walk in a manner worthy of the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 10). Jesus lived a blameless life, exactly what we should pursue.
3. May we please God in all respects (v. 10). Paul encouraged believers to live a life that honored God—always obeying Him and excelling in their Christian walk.
4. May we bear fruit in every good work (v. 10). A Christian’s life should have an eternal impact, and we should be influencing those around us for the sake of His kingdom.
5. May we increasingly grow in the knowledge of God (v. 10). We should always be laying hold of a deeper, more intimate relationship with the Lord.
6. May we be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might (v. 11). Ask God to empower you to do His will for His glory—and He will do it.
7. May our lives express joyous thanks to the Father for His grace to us (v. 12). Our love for Him should run so deep that we can’t help but give all the glory and honor to Him. And those around us will rejoice in Him as well.
See the Life Principles Index for further study:
1:10 — Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
What does it mean to walk worthy of Christ’s name? It means that our conversations, conducts, and characters are consistent with the person of Jesus Christ—we live in a manner that represents Him with honor. When people meet you, they see His likeness and are drawn to Him. This can only be accomplished if you allow Jesus to live in and through you.
1:13 — He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.
Pagans in Colossae believed in appeasing the chaotic and dangerous powers of darkness and filled the Christians there with fear. Though they were right in believing that we are helpless to escape our bondage to the enemy on our own, what they did not understand is that the Lord Jesus has defeated Satan through His death on the Cross and resurrection (Matt. 4:16; John 8:12; 12:46). Christ brings us into the light and into the life of freedom when we believe in Him, so we have absolutely no reason to fear the dominion of darkness.
1:15 — He is the image of the invisible God.
False teachers, pagans, and cults always attempt to undermine who Jesus is. The Gnostic heresy asserted that everything physical is evil and that the Lord would not take on a human body. Another heretical doctrine held that Jesus was just one of the Lord’s representatives. However, to have faith in Jesus Christ means to believe that He is God incarnate (John 1:1; 10:30; 14:9) and that the only way to be saved is through faith in Him (Eph. 2:8, 9; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5).
1:19, 20 — It was the Father’s good pleasure for . . . Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
Before Christ, we were alienated from God, which means that we were hostile to Him— rebellious, sinful enemies completely separated from His presence. Yet the Lord created us to be united with Him in a deep, intimate relationship. So when we talk about being reconciled to God, we mean that our relationship with Him has been restored through Jesus’ blood on the Cross.
1:27 — Christ in you, the hope of glory.
In Old Testament times, the Holy Spirit came upon chosen men and women of God to enable them to accomplish His will. But no one ever imagined that He would actually take up residence in believers, as He does today.
2:6 — As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.
How did you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior? By faith. And that is exactly how you grow into maturity—by faith. The ability to accomplish all God has planned for you is within you through the presence, power, and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. So if you wish to develop your relationship with Him and become all you were created to be, you must willingly surrender yourself to His promptings and trust Him, no matter what He commands you to do.
Answers to Life’s Questions
How can I partner with the Holy Spirit in my life?
When thinking about partnering with the Holy Spirit, it is important to first consider what allowed you to begin a relationship with the Lord. How did you—a sinner—enter into a friendship with holy God? What reconciled you to Him? Was it dedication on your part? Was it a result of your unceasing effort? Of course not! You entered your relationship with Him by faith. Likewise, every aspect of your life with Him requires you to trust Him. The apostle Paul affirms, “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed” (Col. 2:6, 7). The Lord teaches you how to walk with Him, honor Him, and how to join in His work.
We are not the first generation of Christians who have tried to take matters into our own hands; believers throughout history have exhibited the same problem. It is part of fallen human nature to want to maintain control and to do things ourselves. However, when it comes to righteousness, whether for salvation or for living, we must allow God to do the work.
The Spirit-filled life is a life of faith. It started by faith and is maintained by faith from start to finish. What is faith? Faith is believing that God will do as He has promised. It is not a power or something we’re supposed to drum up inside ourselves. Rather, faith is trusting that God will honor His promises. That’s all there is to it.
At the beginning of our relationship with Him, we believed that Jesus would redeem us from the penalty of our sins; now we must trust Him to free us from the bondage of the sinful strongholds in our lives. We must have confidence that He will show us how to live in a manner that honors Him. We are to go about our lives, making decisions, handling crises, raising our families, and so on, knowing He will really do what He said He would do. That is what it means to partner with the Spirit.
See the Life Principles Index for further study:
2:9 — In Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.
Paul warned the Colossians to guard themselves against empty, deceptive philosophies that were based on limited human reasoning. It may be impossible for us to comprehend how Jesus could be totally human and totally divine at the same time (John 1:1, 14; Phil. 2:6–8). But that is the clear teaching of Scripture, and we must accept it, even if we do not understand it. Jesus said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
2:10 — He is the head over all rule and authority.
Everything that exists was created by Him and for Him. It is all under His authority, including all the nations, governments, and rulers of the earth. Of course, some people disagree with that—they do not acknowledge the lordship of Christ. But their opinion is irrelevant because one day “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10).
2:13 — When you were dead in your transgressions . . . He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.
“The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). That means that without Jesus, we are spiritually dead and cannot have any fellowship with God because He is Spirit. If we never accept Christ as our Savior—Who makes us alive spiritually by removing our sin—then we can never have a relationship with Him.
2:14 — Having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has . . . nailed it to the cross.
Each one of us has a legal sin debt that must be reconciled (Rom. 6:23). Yet none of us can pay it because of our sin nature. So Christ—knowing every sin we would ever commit—took our record of wrongs upon Himself and wiped them all out with His own blood (Matt. 26:28; Rom. 3:23–26; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:20; Heb. 9:11–28). It was cancelled forevermore. No one can ever condemn us because our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, paid the penalty in full.
2:17 — Things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.
All of the feasts, festivals, and holidays of the Jews—even the temple itself—foretold the coming of Christ. They were never meant to inspire legalistic adherence to the law, but wholehearted, devoted faith in the coming Messiah.
2:23 — These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.
In some ways, it may seem easier to live by a set of rules than to obey the Lord. But the truth is that pious regulations cannot change our natures—they can only temporarily suppress our true impulses. We must fight against anything that tempts us to conform to a legalistic mindset because that only leads to bondage. Spiritual problems can only be solved by the transformative power of His Holy Spirit.
3:2 — Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
Your mind is working all the time—constantly processing information. And what you think about affects you more than you realize because who you are today is the result of what you’ve been thinking all these past years. That is why believers are admonished to focus our thoughts on the things that honor the Lord—because God’s goal is to change us into the likeness of Christ, and that transformation begins in our minds (Rom. 12:2; Phil. 4:8, 9).
3:4 — When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
The day is coming when Christ will take His throne and believers will be revealed as His people—so we live in great anticipation of His return. But for now, we must allow Him to prepare us for eternity and always fix our hope firmly on His promise that we will live together with Him in glory forever.
3:12 — Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience do not automatically become our characteristics when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior. We have a responsibility to adopt these qualities, but we cannot do this on our own. As we surrender to the control of God’s Spirit, He changes us so that our lives become a reflection of Christ, thus exemplifying each one of these qualities.
3:16 — Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
Whatever we say to one another—whether we do so through sermons, lessons, testimonies, songs, or just casual conversation—should be with the purpose of spurring each other to love God more. We cannot grow in our relationships with Jesus or mature in our walks without the encouragement, help, and instruction of others.
3:23 — Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men.
Every activity we engage in as believers should be done for the glory of God. Regardless of who we are, we must do each task with joy, integrity, diligence, and energy because we represent the Lord, and others will form their opinions of Him through what they see in us.
3:24 — From the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.
The gifts and talents you have belong to God, and when you neglect them or use them for selfish purposes, they are wasted. But when you invest your gifts wisely, the Lord rewards your faithfulness by making you even more effective for His kingdom and blessing you.
4:2 — Devote yourselves to prayer.
Always remember that we stand tallest and strongest on our knees because this is when we are humbled before God and dependent upon His power. As we talk with Him, listen to Him, and allow Him to speak to our hearts through His Word, we receive His wisdom and direction. And as we obey Him in faith, He works mightily to show us the victory.
4:5 — Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.
Unbelievers are always watching us, whether we realize it or not, and we do not know when the Lord will present an opportunity for us to influence them. They may ask us about heaven, eternal life, or God, and we must always be ready to tell them the reason for our hope.
4:7 — Tychicus . . . will bring you information.
No job is small to the Lord. Tychicus did errands for Paul while he was a prisoner in Rome. He traveled great distances to deliver the apostle’s letters to the churches and collected information about the challenges believers faced in each location. To some, this may not seem significant. But if Tychicus and others had refused to deliver Paul’s epistles to the churches, a great portion of the New Testament may have been lost.
Life Examples
Learning to End Well
John Mark had gotten off to a great start. He accompanied Barnabas and Paul on an exciting missionary journey and saw God do amazing things. For whatever reason, however, he left them in the middle of their work, and Paul refused to team up with the young man again (Acts 13:13; 15:36–40).
Paul’s opinion of Mark eventually changed, however (Col. 4:10; 2 Tim. 4:11). Mark went on to minister once more with Barnabas, his cousin, and eventually wrote the Gospel of Mark. He accepted the challenge of ministry—difficulties and all—and ended up a winner.
Many believers fail to end well because they mistakenly think that God’s call to personal ministry depends on their skill level. None of us are adequate in ourselves, any more than any of us can save ourselves. Throughout our lives we must glorify God, and that means depending on Him from beginning to end.
See the Life Principles Index for further study:
4:11 — These are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision, and they have proved to be an encouragement to me.
When Paul was in prison in Rome, God surrounded him with a group of godly men to diligently encourage him and provide for his needs. The apostle doesn’t say anything about their abilities, skills, experience, or education. But he does mention they were men of great character and godliness (Col. 4:7–17). This is what it takes for any of us to do ministry—faithfulness, love, a sacrificial spirit, a servant’s heart, and absolute devotion to the Lord. All of us have the capacity to serve when we commit to obeying God wholeheartedly.
4:14 — Luke, the beloved physician, sends you his greetings, and also Demas.
While at this point Demas is Paul’s faithful companion, some time later he would turn his back on the apostle because he “loved this present world” (2 Tim. 4:10). Finishing well does not happen by accident—we must work at it by keeping our focus on Christ.
4:17 — “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.”
Each of us has some special work that the Lord has assigned to us (Eph. 2:10). What has God called you to do? The Lord has a plan for your life, and if you wish to experience life to the fullest, you need to ask Him what that purpose is. It is only in obeying Him that you will find true satisfaction and significance.