It is all about Jesus and nothing about us. There is no salvation without Him. There is no hope without Christ within. To Him be all the honor and glory. Through His suffering and His death on the cross the Father has made peace with man. For God so loved the world that He gave the Son of His love, that no one need perish and in Christ Jesus we could have eternal life with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Walk humbly with the Lord God. Choose Christ, choose Life!
9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and
to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight— 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.
24 I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, 26 the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. 27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. 29 To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.
The NKJV Study Bible says this: Paul's chief concern is that the Colossians might have full knowledge of God's will. The desire to serve God will be in vain without a proper understanding of the One we want to serve. Thus Paul prays that the Colossians might be filled with full knowledge that encompasses all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Wisdom is the practical outworking of knowledge, and that knowledge cannot be separated from the spiritual understanding that comes through the discernment given by the Holy Spirit. In addition to the full knowledge of the Lord's will mentioned, Paul desires that the Colossians may walk worthy of the Lord. Paul wanted the Colossians to live in a manner that adequately reflected what God had done for them and was doing in them. Believers are empowered not in proportion to their need but according to God's strength. A believer's strength comes from God alone. Believers can never be qualified on their own; instead God must make them sufficient through Jesus Christ. God has liberated believers from the dominion of darkness. The apostle uses the common symbolism of light and darkness for good and evil, for God's kingdom and Satan's kingdom, that is found throughout the NT. The kingdom from which believers have been rescued is the kingdom of darkness. No one should underestimate the significance of the church, for it is in fact Christ's body. Christ is the only Intercessor for human beings and fully embodies all of God's nature No other intermediary, whether person or group, is able to stand in our place before the Father. Only Jesus can do this.
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