We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.
This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.
You learned about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker. He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is helping us on your behalf. He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.
So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
The sweetest, juiciest fruit
What’s the secret of loving ALL of God’s people!? If Paul isn’t using hyperbole then he’s reporting a miracle. Given what I’ve witnessed growing up in church, and (to be painfully honest) what I see in the mirror, the average Christian possesses deep affection for only a few and a commitment to sacrificially serve –laying down one’s agenda for the other’s benefit – for only those few, and then only while everything runs along smoothly between us.
Truly loving beyond the few, beyond the similar and like-minded, beyond my comfort zone – this is surely a gift of the Spirit. And one so few possess in its sweet ripeness, as when a piece of fruit reaches that zenith of maturity that to bite into it leaves the taste buds yearning for more. So many of us possess such powerful love in its early green-apple stage; unappetizing at best, upsetting at worst.
Is there anything I can do other than to beg the Holy Spirit to magically drop such love into my heart? Is there anything that will nurture genuine love for God’s people I don’t like, I’m not like, I like to stay away from, or I so dislike it verges on contempt?
Perhaps Paul’s follow up clause provides a hint. “which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven.” Maybe, developing a deeper understanding of heaven’s qualities, centering more of my life on my reserved spot in glory, and experimenting with ways to live heavenly realities now, will provide the spiritual weather patterns that will foster the ripening of this most delectable fruit.
Father, in whose house I have a room, forgive me for allowing the stuff of this temporary existence to define me and stunt heaven’s love. Grant me the resolve, follow through, and insight needed to make heaven the defining center of my daily walk. As I breathe heaven’s air and bath in its sunshine, ripen love to it most delicious state in me. – Mike Leamon
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