To Encourage You

Colossians 4:2-4 “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.”

Isn’t it curious that there are such unique challenges to telling others about Christ?  All believers know that the gospel, the story of the death and resurrection of Christ and the eternal life it brings, is the most wonderful thing they know. It’s a message that has the power to transform any life, to bring hope to the hopeless, joy to those in despair, light to those walking in darkness, and life to the spiritually dead.  No matter what else a believer has to say, it pales in comparison to this great truth.  You would think anyone who knows this message would want to tell others about it, and that anyone who wasn’t aware of it would want to hear it. But every believer, especially those who have been believers for any time at all, know that that’s not the way it works. 

Sharing the truth of the gospel is a very difficult thing; difficult to share and difficult to hear.  So why is this?  On the one hand, this difficulty makes absolutely no sense, but on the other hand, it makes all the sense in the world.  It’s centered around the fact that the gospel is a spiritual message spoken by God into a very unspiritual, dark world.  The world and Satan, the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4) are opposed to God and anything from God.  Jesus said that “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19).  That’s why, at first blush, anyone still in the world hates the gospel. That’s why they lash out so often to anyone associated with it. It’s why Jesus warned us of persecution. Despite this, we are commanded to share the message of God’s great love. 

To do this requires prayer, prayer like the one above recorded in Colossians 4. It’s a prayer that God would open a door for us to share the message for it’s only God’s supernatural power that can do this.  And it’s a prayer that we would have the boldness to share it, boldness to speak in the face of the opposition that will result.  We pray for these things because the gospel that we share is the only hope for the world.  It’s a message we speak even in the face of persecution.  We speak it because we know the truth and the truth has set us free.  And we know that although it is up to us to speak it, it’s up to God to open our mouths and open the hearers’ ears.  It’s a spiritual thing, as “we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”  For we know that “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:13-14).  And we know that that spiritual discernment is a gift of God – and so we pray.