Colossians 1:9 That is why we keep on talking to God about you since the day we heard about you. We ask him that you may know everything he wants you to do. We ask him that you may be very wise and that the Spirit will help you to understand.
10 We ask him that you will live the way the Lord wants you to live, so that you will please him in everything you do. We ask that you will do everything that is good. We ask that you will see the fruit from what you do. We ask that you will know more and more about God.
11 God has wonderful power. And we ask him to give you all the strength you need to go through all your troubles,to be very patient in them, and to be happy.
12 Thank the Father who has made us ready to be with the people of God who live in his light.
Day 24—The world offers anything but Christ. |
The warning that Paul gave in the preceding verse (Colossians 2:8) leads us to one of the most profound statements in the whole of God’s Word. Paul has just warned believers against the philosophy and empty deceptions that were encroaching upon the Colossian believers. Enshroud in what seemed to be statements of Christian faith, there came the teaching of the Gnostics. “The Gnostics generally believed not in a Jesus who was a Divine Person with a human nature, but in a spiritual Christ who indwelt Jesus.” (Wikipedia )
Gnosticism—from the Greek ginośko, to know—may be found in mystical Oriental religions to whom many are being drawn. The new age movement is moving in upon countless unsuspecting souls. This is particularly so among super-spiritual “Christians” who find delight like the Athenians to whom Paul ministered and who ...spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing (Acts 17:21). Gnosticism was deceptive and confusing—then and now, by whatever name it may be called.
Just as many new believers today become fertile ground for deception, so was true of the Colossians. They saw Jesus as a model for their path to God. With Him as their “spirit guide” they supposed they might find God within themselves. The problem was: they missed the redemption from sin’s bondage. They missed the propitiation for their sins and were thus left to face God’s wrath, unable to declare His righteousness for the remission of their sins. They failed to discover the justification from the Law’s demands that only God’s grace could offer. They failed to know the reconciliation with God that could only come through Christ Jesus.
DEAR LORD, in whatever measure deception has crept in upon us in our fellowship, please search it every bit out. For myself, I ask for a renewal of a love of the Truth. Cause me to love Your Word and search it daily like the people at Berea where Paul ministered. And, LORD, here are these dear ones that I hold before You. Let the love of the world that has taken over in them lose its grip. Please cause Your Spirit to draw them into Your bosom, and there, let their longing for You be renewed.
Becoming Thoroughly Furnished—II Timothy 3:13-17
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