For what is Paul thankful? Ans: faith, hope, love
These three qualities are fundamental to the
Christian life. If you are a Christian,
then you have some degree of all three of these. You must have faith in Christ Jesus to
enter into salvation. Love for all
the saints is evidence of a genuine relationship with God through Christ (1
John 4:20; 5:1). And the hope which
is laid up for you in heaven is the promise of every believer. In 1 Cor. 13:12, Paul not only told us the
greatest is love; he told us that these three traits are the summation of the
Christian life experience.
I want to remind you of 1 Thess. 1:3 which
tells us what each of these traits produce in the Christian’s life: remembering
without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope. Faith produces works (James 2:26; Gal.
5:6). The term “labor” implies work that
requires one to take a beating or to go through a lot of trouble. Love inspires the Christian to that kind of
sacrifice for the saints. The patience
to work and labor consistently and to the end of our lives comes from the
reality of our hope in Christ. Thus, as
our passage indicates, the work and labor are ”because of” or literally “through”
the hope laid up in heaven. By faith work
begins; by love it continues through difficulty; by hope it continues to the
end.
The point in all this is, that Paul has heard
of these things in the Colossian believers.
For that he is thankful. He has
even heard from Epaphras that they love Paul, even though they have not been
blessed with his physical presence. In our
praying we need to thank God when we see evidence of the power of the gospel in
the lives of those around us, even if we have concerns about them. Thanksgiving generally needs to come first in
prayer, before we make request. When we
have seen God’s work in their lives, it encourages our faith to ask God to
continue the work of conformity to Christ.
What request does Paul present?
As in Ephesians 1
and 3 and Philippians 1, this prayer has one main request with several results
that come to reality as the one request is fulfilled.
Basic request: that you may
be filled with the (full) knowledge of His will
in all wisdom and spiritual understanding …
Initial effect: that you may walk worthy of the Lord,
fully pleasing …
Three aspects of the “worthy
walk”:
being fruitful … being strengthened … giving thanks.
Lord willing, in the next post, we will go
into more detail about this great prayer.
I hope you will be emboldened to come to the Lord with this prayer on
behalf of brothers and sisters in Christ that you know. Perhaps, even now, you may want to pray this
prayer for yourself. Pray in faith,
believing it is God’s will for you!
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