If you have been reading me for the last few weeks, we have reached the end of the bible study of Colossians. I have been so blessed and gained a lot through the book of Colossians and I hope you did too by the grace of the Holy Spirit whom I know was working through those texts.
In chapter four, Paul was giving further instructions to the church of Colossae about how to live their lives as Christians. Paul asked the church to pray for him and his friends so that God may open a door for their message to proclaim the mystery of Christ (Colossians 4:3). This was a reminder for me to pray for our spiritual leaders and world leaders. We often find ourselves blaming our leaders when something is not going the right way but as Christians, our first move should be to pray for them as often as possible so that they may be directed by the Holy Spirit in their roles and do what God wants them to do. And if you are a leader, always remember to pray for guidance in everything you do.
“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” Colossians 4:5-6.
The word of God commands us to be wise in our conversations and how we react towards other people, especially those who are not saved yet. We need to always remember that we are ambassadors of Christ and even a two minutes conversation can change someone’s life. Let’s take each and every opportunity we get with other people and use it for the kingdom of God. Let’s proclaim His word; the world needs our lights. The devil never stops working why should we stop talking about God, taking a break, or feel ashamed of the word of God? If you have seen God’s goodness in your life, I encourage you to share it with this world. This can be done through sharing your testimony, your kindness, love, your resources, your smile, your time, etc.
To better understand the verse cited above, let’s dig deeper and look at the role and meaning of the keywords that are: grace and salt. We know that we have been saved by grace through faith, and we know that grace is a keyword in our Christian life. The meaning I found of grace is that it is a spontaneous and unmerited gift that we have been offered by Jesus when we were still sinners that made us God’s children. Thus, in simple words, grace is about showing kindness to someone else even when they don’t deserve it, just like we did not deserve salvation but Jesus gave it to us by paying the most expensive price, spontaneously. You will not always want to show that kindness, that grace, but I encourage you to still show it just like Jesus did not want to go to the cross but He did it anyways; remember that He prayed three times for the cup to be taken from Him by God but He was ready to do it anyways if it was God’s will (read Matthew 26).
The role of salt is to balance flavors in our food and helps to cut off some flavors such as bitterness. In other words, our words should be tasty and delightful to people who may hear them at any time. We can also use our words in being proactive in protecting our relationship which can be done by being tolerant, kind, thankful, and not easily offended. Let’s ask God through prayer to help us use our words wisely when talking to other people; may our words be full of kindness even when unmerited and be tasty and delightful to them.
The second verse of this chapter starts with a very important fact that spoke to me in a huge way when I was reading it. “Devote yourselves to pray,..” (Colossians 4:2). Being devoted to someone, something, or to a cause means that you have to give it all or a large part of your time and resources. This means that we should give all or a large part of our time and resources to God, for the advancement of His kingdom. 1 Thessalonians 5:16 tells us to pray without ceasing. This does not mean that we have to stop everything and just pray the whole day every day but it means that we should keep an attitude of prayer and talk to God throughout the day while doing our daily routines. This takes effort, we have to pray on purpose even when we don’t feel like praying to be able to build that habit in our life.
I pray that God helps us to take off our old selves and put on our new selves to be able to live fully and be free in Christ as He wants us to be. May we love all people and bear all the fruits that God has given to us and most importantly may we pray without ceasing in order to be equipped and face the world to give it our lights.
Blog posts 