Focal Passage: Colossians 1:9-14
I once had the experience of going “caving.” Some call it
spelunking. Some also call it “fun.” I didn’t.
For a few hours that day my wife and I spent time
underground with nothing but a hard hat and a flashlight. I’m a fairly thin
guy, so navigating through the cracks and crevices of the rock was not overly
difficult. At least I didn’t get stuck.
But I did notice that if I strayed from some of the group,
and cut my flashlight off, it was complete darkness. Not the darkness one
experiences at 10 p.m. outdoors, but “absolute” darkness.
I once heard that darkness is best defined as the “absence
of light.”
And that is true not only for caving 20 feet underground,
but being in spiritual darkness.
The key verses for us are 13-14. These are verses that
describe salvation.
All of us lived at one time in the domain or dominion of
darkness, and there we would have remained except for the amazing gift of God,
Jesus Christ, in “whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
In this passage, and elsewhere in the New Testament, we have
a comparison of light and darkness.
Jesus is the “light of the world.” Apart from Him, we live
in spiritual darkness. We cannot know God unless we come to know Jesus, the
Son.
The context of the passage, verses 9-14, is a prayer for
spiritual growth.
A pastor by the name of Epaphras (v. 7) had guided the church most recently. His
testimony was that the Colossians excelled in their “love” for others (v. 8).
But they, like us, needed continual prayer and Paul had been
consistent in his prayer for them.
Paul identified three major focuses of those prayers:
- that they might be filled with the knowledge of God’s
will for their lives, - that they might walk worthy of being Christ’s followers,
bearing spiritual fruit, - and that they might be strengthened with God’s power, a
strength that endures and perseveres with joy.
This is a beautiful passage. It describes the life of grace.
It also describes a life filled with light where the
presence of spiritual darkness and gloom has disappeared for good. That is the
world Christians will know one day. It is also the world we can experience in
limited degree at present.
But let us not fool ourselves. Satan is still alive, and we
have to be on guard every day in our battle against him. We are not so strong.
We cannot win this battle without Christ. He is our conquering hero.
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