1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
and Timotheus our brother,
Paul, called
to be an apostle, publicly and with supernatural fanfare. Nobody laid hands on him or specifically
ordained him … just God. According to
scripture Paul left and went into Arabia to hear God speak and then returned to
Damascus. Once there he hit the ground
running and let nothing turn him from the path God gave him. Not even the warning given to Ananias that
Paul would suffer for Christ dissuaded him from the path God set for him.
Timotheus, a young
man of good standing in all the church of God.
Our brother. Son of a Jewish
mother and Greek father. Stayed with
Paul when Mark would not. Young but
mature, a born again Greek who was uncircumcised but who Paul circumcised (Acts
16:3) in order to make his ministry more effective to Jews. This was one of those above and beyond things
that define a great minister of the Gospel.
His mother was a Jew and father was a Greek man who was apparently not
circumcised, possibly not even a Jewish believer or he would have had his son
circumcised.
There are
times when we might be called upon to do something not required by God’s Word in
order to be received by the audience be it circumcision or even women wearing
scarves or sitting in a less prestigious chair to prevent the anger of those
you are ministering to. It isn’t fair;
this life isn’t about fairness or any other silly concept we might latch onto
in a democratic country. This life is
about service to God NO MATTER WHAT it takes or costs us because that service overrules
any preferences we might have. This does
not mean we must sin to win souls, merely that we ought to be willing to go the
extra mile to win their hearts. We never
sin to win souls. That would make us a
house divided and that house must fall.
2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are
at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ.
You could
begin this verse, “To the holy and faithful loving brethren in Christ which are
at Colosse…” The word translated saints
is hagios which means ‘holy.’ I stress this because it doesn’t merely mean
without sin, but that in Christ you are a living breathing holy of holies just
like the temple and the tabernacle where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. By virtue of being IN Christ you are sinless
and perfect before God. It is this
position of holiness that makes any transgression of God’s word so terrible and
distasteful to the world around us. We so
often claim to be holy but live like the devil.
If we try as hard as we can to be holy we still fall short; too many of
us hardly try at all.
The verse
continues with a salutation: GRACE
(charis), God’s gift of acceptance
(without which you cannot see Him in peace,) be unto you; and because of
the grace, PEACE (not the shalom of the Hebrew language but it is
implied from this Hebrew of the Hebrews Paul).
This peace means quietness and rest.
Not a bad prayer in a turbulent time that will soon see Jerusalem
destroyed and all Jews scattered to the four winds.
We receive
these things from God our Father.
So many have questioned whether or not we should make the Bible gender
neutral. God chose His own gender. Had
He wanted to be an ‘it’ or a ‘she’ He would have told us. God is neither male nor female. His decision to be a father figure, to
‘father’ us, is His alone. Rabbi
Maimonides struggled with this concept.
He didn’t struggle with the idea that God was neither male nor female,
but that God would want to assume the attributes of a human father. For all his intelligence and wisdom he had
never met the Father of Jesus and could not comprehend the creator of the
universe humbling himself for any reason whatsoever. God’s thoughts are far outside our own and
yet we receive the highest level of parental training from someone who is not a
man or a woman. Unlike the opinion of so
many who doubt our faith, it is not a matter of creating God in our image which
they believe, but rather God Himself choosing how He expects to be known.
I seem to
recall that someone wrote a gender neutral Bible several years ago so women
would not feel excluded from the God experience. I do not for a moment believe that the men
who wrote our Bible ignored God’s wishes when they wrote it. Either you believe that the Bible is God’s
perfect word or you do not and your faith is useless and vain. I have enough experience with the leading of God
to know that if I tried to draw close to Him AND write a deliberately slanted
word it would be a terrible and uncomfortable experience. I have written lessons and God has stopped me
in the middle and made me delete it because it wasn’t from Him. When I read it I realized it was just I
myself speaking out of anger or frustration.
The Bible is perfect and if it says God desires to be a Father to us or
a Husband then that is what HE chose.
It’s not that some choice had to be made, him, her or it, so we choose
him; in many cases, especially in the New Testament, Roman’s chapter eight
particularly, the concept of fatherhood is hammered into us. This wasn’t the choice of a patriarchal
society but a patriarchal God.
Why? There are reasons but that is for another
lesson.
The Lord
Jesus Christ. KYRIOS
IESOUS CHRISTOS means the Ultimate
Authority and Lord, the God of Salvation, Anointed Messiah. No ruler on Earth is above Him. Your eternal life comes through Him
alone. All power rests upon Him to save
and deliver. He is God but submitted to
the Father figure He has chosen for Himself.
Even as I write this it makes only a small amount of sense to my natural
mind. Nonetheless it is true. Jesus and the Father are one. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one. We cannot ever fully understand the trinity. We often say that the mayor of a small town
has many hats. He might be the mayor,
town electrician and a member of the fire brigade. It’s one man with three jobs. We have one God who has three main attributes
we call Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
These are able to operate independently of one another so they can
actually have conversations and though they are separate they are inseparable.
If I give you
my word that I will do something for you, that word is dependent upon my body
to carry it out. If God gives His Word
to do something, that Word has life in itself to carry out the will of the
Father. The Father did not actually do
the task but the Father provided the Word and the Word accomplished the task so
the Father accomplished the task because Word and Father are one. I know there is much confusion about
this. Moses asked God, “Who shall I say
sent me?” God said, “Say “I AM” sent
thee. I believe that Jesus is God. Even Jesus said of Himself, “I am (John 8:58).” He also said, “I am sent me (John 7:28-8:18).” Which is it?
Yes. Got that? Good.
Moving on.
3 We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, praying always for you,
The word for
thanks here is eucharisteo from which
we get thanksgiving, gratitude, grace at the beginning of a meal. Paul is reaching out here to the saints in
Colosse and is thankful and grateful to God (the deity who created the heavens
and the earth), and the Father (who watches over us in love and who gave us His
only begotten Son, the Ultimate Authority
and Lord, the God of Salvation, Anointed Messiah, the lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world,” through whom I am always praying for you…
Phew! He thanks God who is also the Father, which
turns the Father’s heart and ear toward us.
He isn’t an ordinary father but the Eternal one who has created all
things. We can assume Paul has prayed
this prayer in faith. Can you imagine
how much love and grace God is bestowing upon this people for Paul’s sake and
theirs? Can you imagine how much you are
growing and being blessed when someone you know serves God with their whole
heart imparts their blessing over your life?
I would be
grabbing the next person I saw by the lapel and shouting, “The Apostle Paul
just blessed me!!!”
Now…let’s
bring it home…what anointing is over your life?
When you bless someone do they feel the same way? Is there someone in your life whose blessings
feel that way to you? There ought to
be. This is why the anointing is so
important because it is the one thing in your life that you may impart with the
sure knowledge that it will not return void nor fail in the task for which it
was sent.
4 Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of
the love which ye have to all the saints,
As soon as
Paul and all those like minded people around him received a whisper of this new
church and how they had faith in Messiah, the God of Salvation, and the love
they had to all the saints; as soon as that he began to pray for them.
5 For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven,
whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;
When people
tell you about Jesus and salvation, what do they say? Do they tell you that Hell with its fire and
brimstone is real and you can miss that?
Do they tell you about the mansions in heaven and floating around with all
the angels? Perhaps they tell you about
the glorified bodies we will receive (and considering how much my arms hurt
right now after working out two days ago that is a real promise). Part of the word of the truth of the gospel
must be the promises of life in the hereafter.
Part of it must be the promises of God in the here and now.
He calls this
the word of TRUTH of the gospel. God
does not lie. There is never a reason
for us to lie about God’s blessings to get people saved. The Gospel is the GOOD NEWS of the gift of
God in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is not
His name alone. It is His title and His
attributes. It is His job description. My last name is Staab. The word in German means shepherd’s
staff. My name means something to me
beyond its connection to my family and history.
My dad was someone who always went around helping others and making
their lives a little better and he was not a Christian minister.
Names matter
and you will either live up to them or shame them; the choice is yours. God gives us names as it pleases Him. In some cases like Abraham, Sarah, Israel and
Paul, he changes their names to line up with their new position in His kingdom. This too is something we ought to explain
when people give their lives to Jesus.
God will deconstruct you and reconstruct you into someone you and He can
be proud of. The first part is hard and
costly. The second part is still hard
and costly but by then you will have developed the faith to believe in the work
God is doing in your life.
6 Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and
bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and
knew the grace of God in truth:
God’s word
always performs the work it has been sent out to perform. Remember, it is alive and has a life of its
own which is in line with the Father’s life.
Your eyes ought to be open so you can watch for and see the work of God
in those around you and pray for them to continue to grow and accomplish all
God has for them. Sometimes God will
plant you in a place temporarily to fix a situation or to be fixed yourself
through that situation. There is always
a place for you, but until you succeed in that place which belongs to someone
else, you will not be trusted to have that which is your own.
Wherever you
have been planted, do the best you can in Him and trust God to know when it is
time for you to stay or move on. I have
worked for more than 30 years in one place and now I am somewhere else
wondering what is next. All I have known
and learned for the past three decades has brought me here and while I don’t
like certain things the way they are right now I trust God to direct me in His
time. I don’t feel angry or upset that
God has moved me because I see Him doing a new thing there where I was and my
presence would hinder that wonderful work.
Now my prayers are for God’s will to be done where I am so I might
fulfill the purpose of His presence in my life.
The fruit I bear now will be to my account.
7 As ye also learned of Epaphras our dear fellowservant,
who is for you a faithful minister of Christ;
At this time
Paul was in Rome and a prisoner. Timotheus
had apparently returned to Rome with a report about this new church in Colosse
and Paul was letting them know that Epaphras who remained in Colosse is a
dearly beloved colleague and fellow laborer but to them he represents the
five-fold ministry in your midst. The
fact that he is considered a faithful minister means that Epaphras kept
at it and didn’t tire or give up. He was
known as someone who would go the extra mile to make sure the word got out and
the job got done. That he was a faithful
minister of the anointed one means that his faithful ministry built up his
anointing. That very faithfulness
allowed him to walk in the power of God.
8 Who also declared unto us your love in the Spirit.
Being a
witness goes both ways. You can be a
witness of the grace of God and not be a people person so it only goes one way. He was a witness of the grace of God and of
the love found in the church of Colosse.
I have often met people who loved the Lord with their whole heart but
were disrespectful or halfhearted toward the people of God. Epaphras wouldn’t send back a praise report
of his own worth but told Paul how much love the church had. He was a true and faithful witness. You ought to be someone who increases the
blessings in someone else’s life rather than your own, which allows God to
increase the blessing to you. This verse
also shows that the church in Colosse was filled with the Spirit of God because,
“the love of God is shed openly into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans
5:5).”
9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do
not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the
knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
Which
cause? Their love in the Spirit. I often hear about the evil of organized
religion. The reality is that
Christianity is a religion of love and mercy.
I won’t say tolerance necessarily because God isn’t tolerant toward sin,
however He does not expect us to beat or kill those who do not wish to be
blessed. God reaches out to everyone
with mercy and love and they either partake of that gift or do not. He will not coerce them or insist. Judgment will come one day and it will be His
judgment, not ours.
Because God
will be the one to judge frees me, as it freed Paul, to be one who merely loves
and cherishes. That freedom allows us to
pray for others to succeed even more than we might. It allows us to desire they grow more than ourselves
and that we might pour all the knowledge we have obtained of God into their
lives. There is always more than enough
work to be done and people to be touched.
If I stumble across a miracle sermon that never fails to win souls to
the Lord and everyone who uses that sermon wins souls to the Lord, the world
will not all be saved. This is a
difficult path and come with many trials and tests. The way is narrow and if we can help open up
the way for a few more to make it then let my knowledge, your knowledge and
everyone’s knowledge be used for that purpose.
Let wisdom flourish and love succeed.
10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all
pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of
God;
This is our
mission statement. Our mission is to
help as many as possible walk worthy of the Lord, pleasing Him in all things
and being fruitful in every good and upright work. As we help others increase in knowledge and
they help us increase in knowledge, let us become strong in our unity with the
Lord.
11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious
power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
God expects
us to be charged up like a generator with His power so we can light up the
world. The Greek says ‘dynamo dunamis,’ Dynamo power! This dynamo power is powered by his doxa kratos, his glorious power. In other words, we are charged by His glory
to accomplish great deeds through the glory that is His and His alone. He shares that power with us to accomplish
great works through us. This is the
honor of the saints of God.
12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
Whether you
have experienced this miracle power or not, does not change its availability
for your use. It IS available to all
those who press into the knowledge of the Word of God. When we saw Jesus transfigured on the mount
of Olives it wasn’t just for us to know that He was the Son of God. It was so we too can understand that He was
the firstborn of many brethren and we too shall be transformed into the saints
in light. Hebrews 1:7 says God makes his
ministers a flame of fire. We bring the
light of God to a dark and terrified world.
13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and
hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14 In whom we have
redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Darkness. Lies, deception, sin, anger, depravity, lust,
rage, drunkenness, addiction, horror, pain, sorrow, these are all gifts and
offerings from the evil one. Have you
ever known someone whose life was out of control and they just could not see
it? Unless they have hit a bottom that
even they can recognize they feel they’re fine.
Perhaps you have been there yourself.
Darkness has a tremendous power and unless a greater power comes to your
assistance you are like someone circling a black hole just waiting for gravity
to suck you in and destroy you.
It is into
this state of hopelessness and helplessness that God comes in and snatches us
out of that hole and whispers words of love to you. God chooses a time where you finally
understand your helplessness and you understand that there is no hope and … He
… just … gives … it … to … you.
Psalm 2 says,
“Why did the heathens rage and the people imagine vanities. Satan screams that you belong to him and with
no effort at all God says, “Silence.”
The voices cease and the accusations stumble and fall. Every word against you is squelched. You are passed from death into light and
lovingly ushered into the kingdom of His Dear Son. The words in your life that once said DEATH
now say LIFE and PEACE. The future is
secured and neither death nor life nor principalities, nor powers nor things
present nor things to come can separate what God has just done in your life.
This act, so
simple in plan, so miraculous in execution has brought you from death to
life. What act? This free gift of God through the cleansing
power found in the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God said that life is in the blood. Life begets life and death begets death. Christ brought life to everyone through His
death and resurrection. You had to die
for your sins and so you did through Jesus.
You had to be born sinless to stand before God and so you did through
His resurrection.
15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn
of every creature:
Jesus is the
visible and obtainable image of an invisible God. We are not God but we obtain a portion of His
image through Jesus. He was first and we
follow. When I say obtainable, I am
speaking of our ability to touch and be touched by the humanity and sinlessness
of Jesus. His act empowers us to do
other acts of miracle and wonder.
16 For by him were all things created, that are in
heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones,
or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and
for him:
Jesus is
GOD. He is the ALPHA and the OMEGA the
FIRST and the LAST. He is Yahweh and
Jehovah. He is not an angel. He is not a prophet. He is not an under-shepherd. He is not like or similar to God or a god, He
is GOD. He is all and in all and through
all and in us all and whatever is was created by Him. The difference between Father and Son is both
beyond our understanding and yet of utmost importance to us. To quote John, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by him;
and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light
of men.”
Our
physicists have discovered that unlike most of our universe’s building blocks,
light is unique. Light is both a wave
like sound and a particle like matter.
Light is energy and energy can be changed from energy to matter (what
makes up our universe and by extension us).
When this portion of John’s gospel says that in Him was life and that
life was the light of men it could also say that in Him was light and that
light was the reality and substance of man.
We were created by His light. He
is so far beyond us that we must die and be reborn as something totally apart
from matter to even communicate with Him. This is not a metaphysical or existential
discussion. This is a statement of fact
based in the reality of quantum physics.
We live, we
die, we change to a state in communion and communication with God or we change
to a state in opposition to God and by His own word, a state of great
torment. He, Christ, has offered us this
choice out of love. When we are born
again we are born of the Spirit and once born of the Spirit we are spirit. We will one day see Him face to face when we
no longer look through these physical eyes and we will be like Him. This free gift have all those who come to
Him. Many great Bible scholars believe
that Adam and Eve were created in total, that is spiritual and physical,
communion with God. When they sinned
their spirit man died and their body followed later.
Whether this
is true or not mankind once was in fellowship to God and then lost it through
sin. Now we are offered that fellowship
again through Christ.
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things
consist.
If Jesus were
not GOD, Jehovah, YAHWEH, YHWH, the Eternal one, this verse would not make any
sense. He is before ALL things. That includes angels and other spiritual
beings as well as our physical universe.
He created the world we live in and the universe it circles through. Without Jesus there would be nothing because
He was before EVERYTHING. Why? Personally I think He was lonely. I wanted to say something else but
can’t. Okay, God wants praise and
worship. Why? None of my business. He wants it and who am I to judge His
intentions. He is certainly worthy of
it. God loves us and wants to show us
His love. Why? I don’t know but it is to my benefit to give
it. I am literally a portion of the
light of God turned into matter and given a mind to think independently.
God made it
possible for me to know Him and by His plan of salvation I am in a
minority. Many judge Him to be unworthy
of our love and respect because He allows so much violence to continue in the
world. I have heard a few good reasons
over the years why this might be but none of them come to mind right now. It takes a certain amount of humility to
serve God and not everyone has it. It
also takes faith and not everyone will receive it. He made us independent; perhaps too
independent, but again, I am not in a place to judge. I know He is real and He has proved Himself
real in my life. I was a skeptic. Now I just wish there was less of my
screaming flesh and more of my wise spirit to serve Him.
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 might have the
preeminence.
We’re still
talking about Jesus GOD here. He was
born into a squalling, diaper needing baby and raised into manhood by human
beings. He was what we all have the
potential to become if we acknowledge God and His Spirit enough. He is the head of what we are becoming which
is the body. In Bible Study this week I
was reminded that we have not become the body, we are becoming the body. It may be complete by faith but surely not in
deed. If the Body of Christ is complete
it is the most schizophrenic and maladjusted body in the world. Once freed of our natural bodies we will be
perfectly adapted to our Savior’s use.
Right now, not so much but we’re working on it.
He started
this adventure and even now (and still in human form) sits at the right hand of
God the Father. He was the firstborn and
first to be raised from the dead. He is
the firstborn Son and will always be preeminent.
19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness
dwell;
When we are
judged in the Bema seat of Christ and God looks upon us and says, “Well done
thou good and faithful servant,” it means that God is pleased with us and what
we have done for and in Him. Twice in
Matthew, once in Mark, once in Luke and once in 2nd Peter God the
Father said, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” God transfigured Him to show His disciples
who He is. Jesus never failed or fell
short of God’s plan. He has all the
fullness of the Godhead dwelling within Him bodily.
20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross,
by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be
things in earth, or things in heaven.
He paid THE
price; your price, my price, everyone’s price, for sin. He paid your debt, however, whether you
partake of that payment is up to you. If
you are not in Christ then the payment is waiting in the warden’s office
awaiting your request. If you never make
the request of forgiveness through Christ’s blood then your payment for sin
will remain unused forever. Anyone drawn
by the Holy Spirit to request this forgiveness will receive it and stand in
it. You are now reconciled and at peace
with God, separated from your sins.
21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in
your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled 22 In the body of his
flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in
his sight:
Unless you
accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior at a very young age, there was a time
when you were alienated to God. He could
not allow you to be in His immediate presence.
Your mind was not renewed by His Word and every evil thought you had was
sin. Having your mind renewed (Romans
12:2) is a process with gradually higher levels to be attained. 1 Corinthians 13:11-12 tells us we are all
half blind in our understanding of God but we are improving day by day as we
press toward the mark of our calling.
Only after we leave this body and are wholly spirit and glorified body
will we know God perfectly.
Christians
have no reason to be arrogant about their salvation. We aren’t perfect or without sin in our own
abilities. We are reconciled to
God. That means that God looked at the
two columns. On our column He saw we
were one sinless life short of making it into Heaven. On His column was the sacrifice of the
perfect Jesus which came with unlimited uses but those uses could only be
purchased by faith. We didn’t have faith
so God in His mercy imparted it to us so we could exercise it and move the
sacrifice of Jesus over to our column.
Once we
accepted this sacrifice and God looked at our zero balance He could at least
accept us as His own. As the song we
often sing says, “We owed a debt we could not pay, He paid a debt He did not
owe.” God’s question to you is will you
arrive in Heaven with a zero balance?
He’s given you talents, gifts and abilities. As Paul said in Philippians 4:17, “I desire
fruit to abound in your account.” In
Matthew 19:21 we are told to give what we have to the poor so treasure may
abound in our account. There are many
ways to build up treasure in our spiritual account. Why do we need a spiritual account? I don’t know, but it appears we do. Accepting for the moment that we do need a
spiritual account, doesn’t it make sense that we should build it up before we
die or are raptured?
One reason is
that according to the parable of the talents we will one day be rulers over
cities. If you haven’t even used your
talents at all, scripture says you will be cast into outer darkness and your
talents given to the one who has the most talents (and who will use it the
most.) I’m not sure what this means to
you who believe in once saved always saved whether you do God’s work or not but
there it is.
Understand
this beloved, God cleared your negative balance and gave you the gifts to build
your credit. You can’t take silver and
gold into Heaven but you CAN sent wealth across. There seems to be some positive reason for
doing so. It doesn’t make spiritually
fiscal sense to be a Christian couch potato and live on Welfare in Heaven. You can make it in with the smell of smoke
still on your clothes but I’d like to be able to say I gave God all I have and
all I am and by His miracle grace He made something special out of me. That takes an effort on my part, your part,
our part.
23 If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and
be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which
was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a
minister;
Have you ever
seen a plane land and bounce and bounce again even higher and every time it
bounces it is slowing down so every time it hits it hits harder until something
might even break. That is our walk with
God when we fail to press and be disciplined.
We do good for a while and we’re flying along but then we lose steam and
begin to lose altitude. At first we’re
stable, just getting lower but after a while the power that keeps us stable and
upright peters out and we begin to bounce along in the dirt.
Saints should
be grounded in faith but not grounded on the sand. Our foundation isn’t one of financial
stability and educational knowledge. Our
foundation is in Christ and that foundation can only be obtained by faith. You can’t walk down to the Jesus store and
buy a quart. His power and anointing
comes through a relationship. You can’t
have a relationship without communication; you can’t have a marriage without
communication, so how do you expect to have a walk with Almighty God without
that same communication. If you’ve read
this then I know you have heard God’s Word.
Like Paul, I have been made a minister of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. I try to speak only the truth of
God as I have learned it through godly teachers and directly from God’s
Word.
24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up
that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's
sake, which is the church:
I have
suffered many times for the sake of the Gospel.
Occasionally it was my fault and at times due to lies and attacks by
others. Usually it was God’s way of
killing off my flesh and strengthening my spirit. If you have ever been blessed by something I
have said or done or written about my Lord then you have every right to rejoice
in my sufferings. There is still some
selfishness left in me and much of what I have endured is so I might grow but
there is also much desire in my heart to see you grow and be blessed through
what I have learned.
Christ’s work
was absolutely complete and Paul was not trying to say that His sacrifice was
incomplete. The truth is that though
Jesus has done a complete work, it is only through our demonstration of that
work in our own lives that many will ever see and acknowledge what He has
done. We provide living examples of the
work of Christ as His body and we are the visible manifestation of that great
spiritual work. He was afflicted and
there are a myriad of scriptures that expect the same for us. We provide a visible example of a completed
invisible work so you too may be encouraged to merge with us into this glorious
body.
25 Whereof I am made a minister, according to the
dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; 26
Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is
made manifest to his saints:
Each of us is
made a minister. Each minister is given
a dispensation, an empowerment and portion of His grace to complete a specific
work on His behalf. The Word of God will
be fulfilled on the earth. Even Judas
fulfilled his portion no matter how ignoble it might have been. I am persuaded that you will fulfill a much
more noble purpose. It is quite possible
that this season we live in is the most exciting and amazing season ever. There is so much of God’s plan and purpose
that has been hidden until now that I am filled with wonder at being allowed to
take part in it. We know things about
our Lord that even His disciples couldn’t see because they just weren’t
possible back then.
It is your
Father’s good pleasure to give you the keys to the kingdom. Can you remember the first time mom or dad
gave you the keys to the car and said, “I trust you?” God is giving you the keys to the future of
mankind and saying, “Use them well. I
will never leave you nor forsake you. Go
in peace my beloved.”
27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of
glory:
Look at Paul.
Until now half of the Jewish priests
wouldn’t tell a gentile what time it was and now one of their rising stars had
been tasked to bring the truth to the lost millions of unchurched pagans. We too have this honor to lead people into
the truth of, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” This takes courage. It’s not Allah or Mohammad, Buddha or any
other man or spirit. It is only in
Christ that we have a hope of glory.
Whether in fear or faith, Christ will be preached and out of those who
hear a few will bow to the moment and say, “Yes.”
28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every
man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
If anyone
tells you it is easy or simple or ‘free’ to serve Jesus they lied. I’m sorry but they flat did not tell you the
truth. We preach the Word with lofty
phrases and platitudes while groaning in the spirit over all the injustices
that daily assault us in the world. Our
hearts are focused and full of love for God and prayers for the lost but it is
a daunting work we do. Satan hates us
and he has been making our life difficult for eons. He has more ‘family’ than we do even though
ours are actually more powerful. People
will hate you while you by commandment must love them. This is but a taste of what it takes to be
perfect in Christ Jesus.
29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his
working, which worketh in me mightily.
Paul worked
with every fiber of his being to use every gift and talent and skill and
promise he was given by God to good effect.
He was faithful when nobody supported him. He was faithful when he spent the day making
tents and every night making converts.
Paul was successful because he never lost sight of the prize and the
purpose.
