Every Believer's Past

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.

Colossians 1:21

This verse reveals the past of every single believer. If you are a Christian then there was a time when you were alienated from God... cut off from relationship with Him... banned from His presence... estranged from the One who created you. The Word Biblical Commentary explains it this way. It says you were “continuously and persistently out of harmony with God.”*

Why? What caused this alienation? Did God turn on you? No. You turned on Him! Colossians 1:21 says that you were "an enemy in your mind because of your evil behavior." There was a time when you were consciously, openly and actively hostile towards God and His rule over your life. And it in your mind. Corrupt thinking led to evil, wicked, immoral behavior.** You thought you knew better than the Creator of the universe. You didn’t want to obey His commands or submit to His rules, so… you didn’t. You lived how you wanted to live and you did what you wanted to do.

Romans 8:7 says “The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” That perfectly describes what you were like before Christ.

If you are a Christian, then this is your past. This is who you were. Many Christians think that since they weren’t a criminal or a drug addict before they got saved, that they really weren’t all that bad. Don’t fall into that error. No matter how young you were when you got saved, and no matter how “good” you were by the world’s standards… your thinking was corrupt, your heart was wicked, and your behavior was evil. You rebelled and made yourself an enemy of God. And because of your rebellion, you were alienated from your Creator.

If you are a Christian and you still live like this, then that’s a problem! If you are a Christian and you are still hostile towards the Lord, you are still rebelling against Him, you are still openly disobeying His commands… then SOMETHING IS WRONG!!! That’s your past. We don’t live like that anymore now that we have been reconciled through Christ.

* O’Brien, Peter T. Colossians, Philemon. Word Biblical Commentary 44. David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker eds. (Thomas Nelson: Nashville) 1982, p66

** Köstenberger, Andreas J. “Colossians.” In CSB Study Bible: Notes, edited by Edwin A. Blum and Trevin Wax, 1891–99. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.

The Image of the Invisible God

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Colossians 1:15

God the Father is invisible. He is a spirit who can’t be seen by mortal flesh. As John 1:18 explains… “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” 

Jesus took on flesh and made God known in ways that we can see and understand. That’s what Colossians 1:15 means when it says that He is the visible image of the invisible God. As Hebrews 1:3 says, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being...”

Jesus embodies (pun intended) all that God is and always has been. And Jesus took on flesh and brought that down to earth so that we could know God more fully. Jesus Himself explained it this way in John 14:9. He said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”

In other words, it’s in Christ that we see God most clearly. Jesus is the greatest revelation of who God is. If you want to know God… look at Jesus! If you want to know the Father, study the Son!

This is why the enemy spends so much time trying to confuse people about who Jesus is and what He stood for and what He did and didn’t teach. If the devil can confuse us about who Jesus is, then he can confuse us about who God is.

So, study Jesus! Not through movies or music or TV shows or social media clips. Study the Bible, God’s perfect record of Jesus’ life and teaching. The enemy is going to try to confuse you about who Jesus is. Don’t let him! Take the time to get to know Jesus and you will get to know the Father.

Pray for the Church

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you...

Colossians 1:9

Paul hadn't planted the church at Colossae. He had never even been to this church as far as we know. And Paul had plenty of other churches that he was responsible for. He had more than enough on his prayer list. Yet… when Paul heard about this church's faith in Jesus and their love in the Spirit he made time to pray for the church in little Colossae. And he didn't pray for them just once or twice. He says, “we have not stopped praying for you.” In other words, Paul prayed without ceasing for the church at Colossae.

Do you pray for the church? Do you pray for your church… for its staff, its deacons, its teachers and volunteers? Do you pray for its business meetings and committee meetings? Do you pray that God would protect it from the attacks of the enemy... that the devil wouldn’t get a foothold in your church? Do you prau that gossip and slander and division wouldn’t take hold there? Do you pray for those in your church who are struggling with doubts, or those who are battling sin, or those who are trying to keep their marriage and family together? Do you pray for your church?

You might think. “Well, Paul was an apostle. He had a special duty to pray for the church.” But you’re a Christian! And, you have a special duty to pray for other believers and especially those in your church. Your church needs your prayers. Other churches need your prayers. So... pray for the church!

Good Seed

In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.

Colossians 1:6

Paul points out that the gospel had the same affect in Colossae that it has had all over the world. The gospel bears fruit and grows everywhere it goes! It has softened the hardest souls and brought the most wretched of sinners to salvation for more than 2 millennia. The gospel is good seed!

This is an important truth that we need to pay attention to. Satan will try to convince you that the gospel doesn’t work anymore… that it won’t work on your friends or your family. But that’s just a lie designed to get you to stop sowing gospel seeds. Don’t believe it!

Plant! Sow! Scatter! The gospel is good seed! It grows all on it’s own and it still has the power to save souls.

This reminds me of a little tradition my family and I have fallen into. Every fall we place pumpkins on our front porch and when the season is over, we smash those pumpkins in our back yard. The first year, we did it for fun because we thought the kids would enjoy smashing the pumpkins. But then some of the seeds took root and grew on their own. Now, we do it every year. I have a pumpkin plant growing out of my brush pile in the back yard right now. It’s a pain to mow around. It’s only there because the seed was good. I didn’t cultivate it. I didn’t fertilize it or weed it or water it. The seed fell and it just grew on its own.

That’s what the gospel is like. It’s powerful! It produces fruit in people’s lives all on its own. All you have to do is scatter the seed.. So, share the gospel! Talk to people about Jesus. It may take weeks or months or years for you to see the fruit, but the gospel is good seed... it will produce fruit if you will only plant the seed.