"For this cause…"
What
cause? The cause of Christ and the love that he’d heard was active
and very much alive in these Colossi believers. We should not dare
forget what were they just a few months or years ago? Pagans! And
pagans or infidels, didn’t know what true Love is. There are
missionary friends down in Bolivia and other places in South and
Central America the missionaries shared with me through the social
media or the last time they were home, how they were doing a
translation for some of those primitive tribes and every once in
awhile they get hung up in their translations because those people
just don’t have a word for something. Do you know what one of them
was? Love! They didn’t have any idea what love was. They didn’t
even have a word for it in their vocabulary. Isn't that shocking?
But listen, when you have people who have never been exposed to the
Love of God and the Truth of this Gospel, they don’t understand
real Love. And these pagans especially had no love. And
consequently they could follow all those gods and goddesses and stuff
because there was not a true understanding of love.
Colossians
1:9
"For
this cause (because he understood that the Colossi believers
knew what love was now all about. They loved each other, through the
Word, they could love God-Christ and so he says for this cause) we
also since the day we heard it, (what do we call that today?
Reputation. What was the reputation of these Colossi believers? They
were loving, sincerely, these godly ex-pagans) 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."
What
do you suppose he was praying for? That it wouldn’t stop! That it
would just continue and grow expediently. And this is the reason,
the Scriptures tells us that Christ-likeness in true Christianity
literally turned the Roman Empire upside down and it was because they
were so sincere in their love, first for one another, as well as for
the Word and God Himself. None of those other gospels have the power
which Christ's Gospel has, they like Judaism are weak and beggarly
and pale when stood side by side with this Gospel.
We
all need from time to time to ask the Holy Spirit for new infilling
and more of the Truth which He alone reveals to us through God's
Word, Christ Jesus. For here Paul tells us that if we need knowledge
in all wisdom and spiritual understanding of God's Will, all we need
is to ask and He will accommodate our request. Why? Because He is our
need and therefore He is the source or the supply of that which is
needed. Is this not what James also says in his letter addressed to
the scattered Hebrews, in James 1:5 and 3:17? If we are in need of
heavenly or divine wisdom all that we need do is to ask and thank Him
for our receiving of Him Who is our need.
We
appreciate it so much when you e-mail or tell us on Face book that
you’re studying the Word and are enjoying it and sharing it with
others. That is what we are here for. This is what we want to show
from the Book of Colossians – how these early Christians didn’t
just sit on what they had gained, they shared it, they spread the
Word and that of course, is our responsibility even today. Let’s
get back to Colossians where Paul is introducing a prayer that he
offered continuously, on behalf of these Colossi believers, because
it is also appropriate for us today.
This same prayer is for us and it behooves us in turn to pray it for
fellow believers. I might also include those who are hostile
against us in word and deed. It’s also practical and don't forget,
what were these people a few years ago? Pagans and infidels, with no
understanding of the Old Testament. For our day many may claim to
have some kind of handle on what is revealed within the context and
language of both the Old and New passages of scripture but when the
ribber hits the road they miss the mark.
They
did not have the Old Testament. They did not even have any of the
New, though I would rather call it them by the word, “Covenant”.
Because that is what it is between God and those who have chosen His
Salvation over remaining a child of Satan. And so the more you think
about that the more amazing it is that here we have a group of people
that the Apostle Paul can deal with on this level ground (for this is
what John the Baptist did for all of mankind, he brought about the
leveling of the mountains and making the path straight for the Lord,
in Luke 3:3-6, quote from a passage from Isaiah 40:3) and know that
they knew what he was talking about. And then bring it on up to our
present situation. My, it should be so much easier to teach these
things today. Where people have at least, a cursory knowledge of the
Old Testament and they have an understanding of how Jesus who became
the Christ was born at Bethlehem and so forth. Those people didn’t
have any of that. And so it really should be easier now but it isn’t.
Human nature hasn’t changed one iota. These people steeped in
paganism were just as human as lost people are today and it took the
same power of God to bring them out of that as it does to bring a
lost and unbelieving person to the Light even today. And so Paul
goes on.
Colossians
1:9
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