Colossians is one of Paul’s letters to the church there in Asia Minor. Today I want to focus on one verse there, 4: 12:
“Epaphras,who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.” (NIV)
A look at the Greek as I do, lately more than before, indicates the final portion here “… that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and full assured.”
The Greek as translated states “complete, having been completed” and as I prior wrote concerning “sanctification” as stated by Jesus in John 17 Jesus’ statement “I sanctify myself” is in the masculine meaning a strong verb as his doing akin to “I dig this hole” “that they too may be sanctified” akin to “that they may fall into the hole I dig for them” being the feminine form of the verb receive. It is received by ALL who believe from the Father as Jesus prayed there.
“Mature” in Col. 4: 12 indicates growth from babyhood in “all the will of God” thereby “fully assured.”
Today I also read in Wikipedia (sometimes a starting point for my informational investigation) and confirmed my satisfaction at having been led around the pursuit of God through the intellectual fist fight of God’s Grandchildren. God doesn’t have any grandchildren?
To read the scripture and then begin to try to define the mystery of Christ intellectually is humorous to me. I, after a long journey entailing many abuses from the religious and the irreligious, as the perpetual “new guy” report to you Lord little “Be Kind to the stranger at your door.”
Further, raised in a denomination where the legacy members are favored in direct opposition to growing any sort of assembly fitted by God through his Spirit of Truth given at rebirth, per Jesus, and where Holiness is set as their attainable goal either through authentic means or by the flesh is a very bad place to start. The trouble is that the METHOD O high and mighty method-ist (not criticizing that denomination, whom incidentally made the correct Biblical decision last week, but having read the focus of their prophet, also the one in the denomination I was once among, I remain unimpressed) back to the trouble is that setting that as a human goal with human definition leads necessarily to legalism among the ones rising from the bar of soap in the mouth.
From momma’s bar of soap they’re risen to varying degrees into the self appointed superior parental authoritarians who belittle those called to the cross by the Lord. So the Lord has sent me to wash their mouths out with manure.
Lord, you intervened in my life beginning in my teens drawing me to yourself in Jesus. Truly not looking for you as prophesied I found you. Rather you found me. There were those, genuine, who acted as your ambassadors per Colossians 1: 2-6:
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. 5 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (NIV)
But also, the misreading of Jesus’ words of the “Kingdom of God” in Israel, after his telling you he was not preaching any gospel to Gentiles, you (a few among you … unfortunately possessing authoritative power in human institution … lording over others, just like Jesus told them not to do) in legalism bewitched me: Galatians 3: 1-14 here for clarity: 1 Timothy 1: 5-7:
“The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.6 Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk.7 They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.” (NIV)
Maturity? How are you going to have a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith apart from receiving it directly in your inner being from the Lord Jesus as he instructed and instructs individual believers right NOW. John 16: 12-14:
“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” (NIV)
John 3: 3-8:
“Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (NIV)
Romans 10: 4:
“Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” (NIV)
Paul assures you at Romans 10: 8-13:
“But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim:9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. 11 As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (NIV)
Those who ignore Jesus and ignore Paul end in a very bad situation as per Jesus in Matthew 7: 1 (they must be stupid) as Paul tells us in Romans 14: 4:
“Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.” (NIV)
Chris Queen 3/2/2019. Please hit the Follow above and to the right. Please leave you comments below. My books misquoting Logic HERE and Misquoting Calculus HERE, lay out the math God spoke about in Daniel 12. The confirmations there of Jesus’ words (Matthew 24) when he points to Daniel (12: 9-13) confirmed by John in Revelation 11:1 among the other word problems God boasts about will increase your faith and preserve the faith of the young now under false teaching in public schools and institutions of higher alleged learning. All the lies are from the devil. The Lord as Paul reveals want us to be fully assured. By faith. You cannot get there by the Law.
