Colossians Part Thirteen

By Johnny Angel

Colossians 4:[1] Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven. [2] Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. [3] 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. [4] Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. [5] Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. [6] Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone (NIV).


In verse one, Paul finishes the thoughts we explored in the last passage. In the day and time when Paul wrote this, slavery was still a common practice. Though slavery is sometimes still practiced in other parts of the world, consider how this verse could relate to us today. The Greek word for slave here means a servant who is in bonds to his master, thus a servant who is a slave to his master. All of us will have leaders that we have to obey. In the same manner, we may have opportunities of our own to lead others. We must always remember that God is leading us. He is our Master. We should treat those under our authority with the same grace and kindness that our Master treats us with.

Verse 2 is very important. My friends and I have been discovering recently the power of prayer. We have been seeing our churches grow. God has been revealing spiritual wisdom to us. And even greater than this, we have been seeing people saved! I have seen six children come to know Christ as Lord and Savior within the past week! God is very much alive and in complete control of what's going on!

I hear some people say that they don't like to pray. Prayer bores them. But I cannot express in words what it feels like to write down prayer requests and go over them daily and then see God answer the prayers.

Moving on to the next two verses, Paul requests that the people at Colossus pray for him and the other missionaries. I can testify that praying for Chrisitans who are working somewhere else works! I have seen the results of praying for specific ministries and specific people at two specific churches. God has doubled the number of students involved at these churches. The people have been growing spiritually as has been my prayer. They have been getting involved and stepping up to accept various responsibilities. The result has been growth, revival, enthusiasm, and people getting saved. When we pray, it is nothing that we do that makes things happen. We do not have the power ourselves. It is just the power of God working through us. It is the simple fact that we take the time to tell God that we are concerned. The Bible teaches that when God's people care enough to repent, turn to God, and call on Him, He will do things.

And I wish to make it clear that prayer is more than just thanking God for what He has done and asking Him to do more. It is more than just begging God to help you through a situation. There have been scenes in various movies in which a character was facing a desperate situation. He might be swimming from far out in the ocean to the shore or he might be about to die in a car wreck. The characters would beg God to keep them safe. They would tell God how that if He would just help them out that they would quit doing bad things. They would never do something stupid like this again. They would start being nice to everybody. But as soon as they got out of their situation, they went back on their promises. We cannot treat God like this and expect to see the power of prayer at work in our lives.

God reveals to me more and more that being a Christian is not following a set of rules. It is not being perfect. And God is not an unreachable supernatural being. We cannot reach God on our own. But the Cross of Christ built and bridge between us a God. His precious blood washes away all our sins that God cannot stand to look at. God simply wants to have an intimate, love relationship with us. He wants us to talk to Him. He wants us to tell Him our dreams. He wants us to tell Him our fears. He wants us to share our ideas. And He definitely wants to share His ideas with us. There have been so many times that I've felt all alone. All of my friends or family have been out of town or it was the middle of the night and I couldn't call to wake anyone up. But God was there, and He just wanted to talk to me. He can do this through the Bible, through Christian books, through music, and even through movies. Sometimes I can't watch a movie without God speaking to me and showing me how certain characters or situations are similar to those in real life.

Prayer is awesome! It makes being a Christian become a reality. It makes one's spiritual walk grow. It helps one to make it through life. It's just something that I can't put into words. But I encourage you to make it a daily part of your life. It may seem like nothing is happening at first, but the more you do it, the more you will see happening!

Paul emphasizes in this passage that we must pray for our spiritual leaders. We must pray for them to preach and teach boldly, clearly, and effectively. We must pray for God to help them through whatever they have to face. When we do this, we are becoming involved in their ministry. And the Bible makes it clear that when two or more agree on something or two or three gather in His name, He will be there and take care of whatever needs there are!

We must take advantage of everything in our lives and every person that we meet as an opportunity to show God's love. We do not have to hand everyone a tract or start witnessing to them. But we can do things like hold doors open, let people through the intersection first, help people carry stuff, and other similar acts of kindness.

Our conversation must always be pleasant and full of grace. As Christians, we can talk about what God has done in our lives. And even when we talk about other things, our conversation will be decent and uplifting. It will not tear people down or make them feel bad. It will be seasoned with salt. As we know, salt adds flavor. But it also makes you thirsty. We can let our conversation cause other people to be thirsty for God. The Psalmist declares, "As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul thirsteth after you." Let whatever you say or do make other people thirsty to know about Christ and what He has done for you!

This does not mean that we will be perfect and never say anything bad or do anything bad. We will never be perfect until Jesus takes us home to be with Him in Heaven. But we can continuously strive to be more like Him every day. When we do this, it will turn the world upside down. People will know that there is something different about us, and they will either run from it or want to know about it.

N Prayer, Johnny <*}}}><