Dear Student of the Word,
It's time to start studying another book! This time I have chosen Paul's letter to the Colossians, which is short and should allow us to finish in five weeks. We start out this week in Colossians 1, as you would expect, and immediately Paul began writing about the Lord Jesus and ways to please God. Here is a sample of what I wrote this week. Remember, we study no more than four verses every day and questions to help you apply those verses are always in bold, so you can review them more quickly and easily. You can download the rest of the daily study at the end of this entry.
The second trait that pleases God is growing the knowledge of God. Are you growing in your knowledge of God and of some of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith? How are you accomplishing this? By reading? Studying? Classes? Church programs? And how do you know that you are growing in the knowledge of God? What measure can you use that is relevant and not self-deceiving?
v. 11 – The third practice is being strengthened with all power. What is the result of this power? Is it to raise the dead and see miracles of healing? While there would be nothing wrong with those activities, the result of the power that Paul referred to here is great endurance and patience. Yet I don’t believe that this patience is to be exercised where doing God’s will is concerned, for you are to aggressively seek and then do God’s will. This patience is in regards to your own personal comfort, reputation and relationships when they don't go as you would want.
We recently had a funeral in our family and everyone came home for the event. At times it was hard being together, although we love one another and enjoyed our time. Everyone had to overlook slights, ignore things said (or not said) and put aside their personal wishes and desires for the good of the family. My wife woke up one morning and said, “God reminded me that it’s about the cross; the cross is the only way we can all relate to one another.” Remember what Jesus said:
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:34-35).
v. 12 – The fourth trait that pleases God is joyfully giving thanks to the Father. God has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in His kingdom. He provides for us and protects us. We have an inheritance in heaven with all the saints. If you know that and don’t give thanks to God on a regular basis, then you don’t fully understand what God has done for you! Thank You, Lord! If you don’t have joy in abundance, then perhaps you need to meditate on God’s goodness for a bit.
So there you have the four practices that please God: bear fruit in every good work, growing the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power and joyfully giving thanks to the Father. Where do you stand with these four traits? Where can you improve?
As always, I welcome your comments to this week's study. You can write them or find the studies to Corinthians, First Timothy, and Matthew's and Mark's gospels on the site where this week's entry is posted. You can also go there to sign up to receive each week's study.
Plus my website archives contains a complete collection of all my verse-by-verse Bible studies from Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Romans, 1&2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1&2 Thessalonians, 1&2 Timothy, Hebrews, James, 1&2 Peter, Hebrews and Revelation, along with the unpublished Faith Files.
Comments