Colossians 1:9-14

Oh that we may  be filled with the wisdom and understanding that comes to us through Holy Spirit. Within us He can accomplish God’s will for our lives and the lives of those we touch.

"Thank you, Great Spirit, for entrusting me with another day. Thank you for giving me another chance to do what I can do. I will strive to be worthy of your trust by being kindness in action. I will be mindful of what I am doing. I will be conscientious in my compassion. With your help, I will be a source of love and hope for every person and creature on this planet who share these hours with me." Rev. Steven Charleston    

A blessing for telling the truth
(no matter how bitter or sweet)
Blessed are you, resisting the urge to reframe.
You who are sick and tired of silver linings.
Blessed are you, speaking honestly
about what is right in front of you:
This is hard.
Things might not get better.
This really has gone horribly.
There may not be a different way.
You who risk honesty,
especially when the world around us craves a brightside.
Blessed are we in our gratitude and our pain,
our pleasures and our limitations.
Blessed are we, the truth-tellers.
Whose candor finds a chorus that echos back: “Same.”
May we feel ourselves answered
by this language of love,
changed where we can,
and confirmed where we can’t.
But loved loved loved all the same.
Amen.
Thank you Kate Bowler “Sabbath Moments”

Colossians 1:9-14

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. The New King James Version

All the fulness dwells in Him refers to God being fully present in Christ. Consequently, Christ is sufficient for the Colossians’ salvation. This phrase echoes the glory of God filling of the tabernacle Exodus. 

In the ancient world, people believed that deities lived on high places such as mountains. For example, when the Israelites entered the wilderness, God met them on a mountain. But God did not stay on the mountain; He instructed the Israelites to build a tabernacle—a dwelling place for Him to live among His people. God came down and filled the tabernacle with His glory as a sign of His presence among them. The prophet Isaiah interpreted this cloud of glory as the Holy Spirit. This gracious act was God’s extension of friendship to the Israelites 

The Gospel of John describes Christ as the tabernacle or the dwelling of God—an allusion that demonstrates the continuity between God’s presence among the Israelites and His presence in the person of Christ. The Fullness of God refers to the act of restoring a relationship to harmony. The purpose of Christ’s death on the cross was to bring all things created by Christ and for Christ into harmonious relationship. Faithlife Study Bible

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. Being “worthy of God” is a phrase that occurs in ancient pagan inscriptions throughout Asia. It pictures someone’s life being weighed on scales to determine its worth. If these devotees to false gods knew they had to walk in a worthy manner, certainly Christians should dedicate their lives to the living God in order to please Him. 

According to His glorious power means that believers are empowered not in proportion to their need but according to God’s strength. So then, Paul desires to see nothing less than the very power of God Himself at work in the Colossian believers. Like Samson’s 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. The tense of the verb points to “qualifying” as an act in the past rather than a process. Ordinarily to qualify for an event or a position, we have to prove ourselves. However the inheritance that believers receive is not one that they have earned but is based on being qualified by God. 

The Father “qualifies” us for eternal life with Him, whereas the Son will reward us at the end of the race. 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. 

The Greek word redemption points naturally to the payment of a price or ransom for the release of a slave. The slavery from which believers are released is not physical but spiritual. They are freed from bondage to sin by forgiveness of sins through the blood of Jesus Christ. The NKJV Study Bible

Proverbs 2:6 For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding;

Ephesians 1:7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace

Ephesians 4:2 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love,

1 Thessalonians 2:12 that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

2 Peter 1:11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.