To Encourage You

Colossians 1:9-10 “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

One of the things that hinders people from becoming Christians is that true Christianity is an “all-in” thing. To become a follower of Christ is not something to be taken lightly. It isn’t something we “add on” to an otherwise full life.  It is a total and complete transformation of a life. This is seen in the prayer above and the “allness” of the language.  Paul asks that the Christians for whom he is praying “be filled” with the knowledge of God’s will in “all” spiritual wisdom and understanding, that they walk in a way that fully pleases God, that they bear fruit in every good work, and that they continually increase in the knowledge of God.  When Christ fills our life, when we become born again, “All things are become new” as it says in the King James version of 2 Corinthians 5:17.  God wants to fill us with Himself.  He wants us to “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).  Such a change in a life is a total, all-encompassing thing.  When Christ truly fills a life, there is no room for anything that is ungodly in its nature. 

By contrast, the Bible talks about those who have no interest in God in this way: “They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness” (Romans 1:29).  

Paul said this of his life: “For to me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21). Surely if that is a true description of one’s life, there is no room in that life for those things listed in Romans 1.  There will be no place for them.  To be filled with Christ is to be filled with His Holy Spirit.  And to be filled with the Holy Spirit, is to be filled with the fruit of the Spirit; things like “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, (and) self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).  And any true follower of Christ wants more than anything to be filled with such things. 

But God doesn’t force Himself on us.  He wants us to want Him.  That’s the first step in the transformation from having no-knowledge of God to being filled with the knowledge of God.  But to those who make that first step, who acknowledge their lack and their need of the things that only He can give them, He gives this wonderful promise: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.  Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live” (Isaiah 55;1-3). And He says this: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, asthe Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit” (John 7:37-39).  But these things come only to the one who has given his all to Christ.  How blind one is who holds on to the meagerness of his own possessions to only miss out on the infinitude of the Living God. 

So are you “all-in” for the One Who loved you enough that He gave His entire life for you?  Oh, how He wants to fill you and me with His infinite good gifts, and to bless us with all that He has.  Indeed “the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).  And His eyes see our hearts, as He waits to give all of Himself to those who truly want just that, and nothing else.