Fullness of Knowledge

After reading a book review, I decided that I really wanted to order that book. Before I ordered it, I thought, “I think I might have that book already.” After looking around, I found it. There it was. Now, I had a greater appreciation for what I had purchased some time ago, and I began to read it.

As we have been learning from the book of Colossians, the Christians were being urged to look for something that they already had, but were overlooking. The false teachers were suggesting that the ordinary church members were spiritually deficient and needed a spiritual filling. Years ago, a member of my congregation suggested to me that I needed to move beyond the Bible and preach something else! I’m not sure what he had in mind.

Paul reminds his readers that in Christ, they had already “been filled in him.” Colossians 2:10 (ESV). Further, he added that it had pleased God for all his fullness to dwell in his Son, Jesus Christ. (Col 2.9) What they were being urged to get, they already had – that is, reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus Christ which enabled them to “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,” (Col 1.13). You can’t get more than that!

The troublemakers were not denying that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, but they were implying that a satisfactory spiritual life required more than a relationship with God through Christ. But, what was really needed in their lives was a greater realization of what they had already been given when they heard and responded to the gospel of grace concerning the reconciling love of Jesus Christ.

That is why Paul prays for the Christians there that they would “filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ^{10} so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” (Col 1.10)

I doubt there is anyone in our church that doesn’t have bible around. Dust it off (if you need to), for you will find more treasure there than you could discover anywhere else in the universe. And each of us can pray. Just start talking to God and begin asking that you may know him better.

But you must be willing to ask, and seek and to knock that the Lord may fill you will knowledge of his will, and we also learn that the will of God corresponds exactly with the joy and happiness which God desires for all his children.