To Encourage You

Colossians 1:12-14 “giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

In the verses above, Paul gives thanks for a number of actions that God has taken on behalf of every believer.  It’s important to note that each one of these actions is in the present perfect tense.  It’s something that has been completed in the past, but its effects extend into the present.  It’s not something we are waiting for. It’s already done.

The importance of this point is great.  Many people heavily involved in religion have a belief that they can never know very much for sure about their present condition. They know even less about the future. I had a conversation with an Amish friend some time ago who told me that she believed that it was not possible to know if you are going to heaven. The Amish live their entire lives by a strict set of rules, yet, they believe they can never know, until death, if they’ve done enough.  I heard essentially the same from a Roman Catholic friend of mine awhile back. He told me that no one can ever know if they are qualified to go to heaven.  Muslims have this type of thinking as well, in that they believe that they cannot know until the scales are balanced in the end, the good against the bad, as to whether they will enter heaven. 

None of these ideas have their origin in Biblical Christianity, and the verses above make that clear.  In these verses, Paul is speaking to believers and assuring them that they have already been qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, i.e., the kingdom of light, another name for heaven.  They have already been delivered from the domain of darkness that they were once a part of. They have already been transferred into the kingdom of the Son of God. They were already a part of it, at that very moment.  They have been redeemed and they have been forgiven.

All of these things were present realities in their lives based on what God had already done for them in the past and not on what they had done.  These were not things they had to ask for or hope for.  Because they had placed their faith in the death of Christ as the punishment for their own sins, and the resurrection of Christ as the promise of their own resurrection to eternal life, they could have tremendous assurance about both their current condition and the future that had been promised to them. 

Christianity is a belief in certainties.  The God, Who cannot lie, has done awesome things on the behalf of every believer, and He has clearly told us about them. They are completed, and no one and nothing can take them from us.  No wonder Paul begins the words in the verses above with “giving thanks to the Father” for certainly, how could we ever thank our magnificent God enough for the things He has already done for everyone who has put their faith in Him.