The Adverse Side-Effects of Being Filled with God’s Will
For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you, have not ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may live worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of all patience and steadfastness, joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
Paul and his entourage are praying for the people of Colossae. He wants God to fill them with the knowledge of His will so that they may:
- Live worthily of the Lord
- Please the Lord in all respects
- Bear fruit in every good deed
- Grow in the knowledge of God
- Be strengthened with all power according to His glorious might
- Display patience and steadfastness
- Be joyful
- Give thanks to God the Father
That’s a huge list!
But notice, the primary thing, the zero-eth thing, if you will, is that God would fill them with the knowledge of His will. Everything in that list is a side effect of that filling. Everything in that list, as great as it is, is a side-effect of God’s presence in their lives.
Let’s pray that we would exhibit that list. Let’s pray that all of those things happen to us. But let’s pray that we’d be full of the knowledge of God and His will first and foremost and all of the other things would just happen.