This morning I was considering what to write. I knew I wanted to share some of Paul’s encouragement to us, as Christians. However, some of his sentences are so long and compound with multiple prepositional phrases, adjectives and adverbs.
To fully unpack the meaning of these wonderful words we need to break the sentences down. That takes time and the skills we learned in Jr. Hi English class. Plain and simple, it’s called sentence diagramming.
Paul is writing to the “saints” in Colossae and to us “saints” who live in today’s world.
“This is what we pray: that God will make you completely sure of what he wants by giving you all the wisdom and spiritual understanding you need; 10 that this will help you live in a way that brings honor to the Lord and pleases him in every way; that your life will produce good works of every kind and that you will grow in your knowledge of God; 11 that God will strengthen you with his own great power, so that you will be patient and not give up when troubles come. Then you will be happy 12 and give thanks to the Father. He has made you able to have what he has promised to give all his holy people, who live in the light. 13 God made us free from the power of darkness. And he brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son. 14 The Son paid the price to make us free. In him we have forgiveness of our sins.” Colossians 1:9-14
Paul prayed for us. He prayed that God would make us sure, completely sure of what He wants so He gives us wisdom and understanding, all wisdom & spiritual understanding. We need this wisdom and understanding to live a life that honors & pleases the Lord in EVERY way.
This wisdom and understanding will cause our lives to produce GOOD works of every kind, understanding & good works will cause us to grow in our knowledge of God. Paul also prayed that God would strengthen us with power, His great power, so that we will be patient (have endurance) and not give up when trouble comes.
Not giving up, we thank the Father because He has made us free from the power of darkness (this is His promise to us) and brought us into His Son’s kingdom where we have freedom and the forgiveness of sins.
WOW!!!
Thank you, Mrs. Morgan, for teaching me to diagram sentences. (By the way, I just saw there’s an app for that). We need to learn how to study the word of God because every word has meaning and purpose.
God doesn’t waste words – In the beginning He said, “Light be” and light was.
When we find a couple of verses filled with so many words, we must take time to find the meaning packed in each one. Learn to study them out.
It’s there we will find the wonderful message of God’s love, His wisdom, understanding and strength!