By Grace Through Faith

Today, let’s look at Colossians 4:2-6

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” 

Here, Paul is writing to us so that we can clearly understand how we should live for Christ. There are many other places in the Bible where it says how Christians should live, but for me, this passage stands out a little different. So today, I want us to dive in this scripture together, sentence by sentence, so that God can reveal to us how we should live.

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” – Colossians 4:2

Here, it says the word “devote” when talking about prayer. Paul used this word on purpose. He didn’t say “pray daily” or “it’s recommend that you pray”. He chose DEVOTE.

God knows that it’s easy for us to forget to pray and thank Him for the good things. We get caught up in the craziness of life. BUT, that doesn’t excuse us from prayer. In everything that we do, we must devote to prayer. We can’t just push it aside and say “‘oh I’ll do that later”. We should want to talk to God everyday more than just once.

And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. – Colossians 4:3

To me, these sentence stands out and Paul is telling us that we should pray for the other missionaries in the world. The people who are in chains, other countries, or even right around you that are trying to get the word of God out there. He wants us to pray for the other believers and that they may proclaim the word of God to others.

This is so important because the power of prayer gets overlooked so much. Prayer can really change people’s lives and we sometimes don’t even realize that.

Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. – Colossians 4:4

This next part still follows the last sentence in that we should pray for other believers, but we also want to pray that what they say about the gospel is true. It doesn’t help God if people go around saying false words about Him. We want to pray that what others say about Christ is clear and right.

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. – Colossians 4:5

Woah, Paul hit the head of the nail right here. He tells us clearly that we must be wise in how we act to others. We shouldn’t go around and excluding people just because of their race, gender, belief, etc. We should make the most of every opportunity. Now, this doesn’t mean that we have to go around to every single person on campus and have a gospel conversation with them. I mean, that would be awesome if you do that but here Paul wants to understand that we should make the most out of every conversation that we have with the people around us, the people in our classes, the people in front of us in the lunch line, the people that we have conversations with everyday and see daily.

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. – Colossians 4:6

We, as Christians, need our words to be kind. Our words need to reflect who are amazing God is. We don’t need to gossip; we don’t need to cuss. In every conversation, our words need to glorify the Lord.

The way Paul writes and the words that he uses make such a difference in this passage. Colossians is a wonderful book that shows us how we need to live and advice to get to that point in our lives. So, thank you Paul for writing such wonderful words, and thank you God for allowing Paul’s words to impact not just my life, but everyone out there.

I hope this has been encouraging and helpful to you as we went through this little passage together. I am praying that whatever you are going through, that you remember you are not alone and God is right there with you, fighting beside you.

Love always,

Claire