The Holman Bible Dictionary reads, “Salvation properly understood, should include a life of spiritual growth, ever moving toward the goal of Christ-like living.” The apostle Paul provides an image of what each believer’s life can become.

In Colossians 1:9-14, he deals with four concerns related to spiritual maturity. First, you can enjoy a life of knowing God’s will—“that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” (v. 9) Wisdom is the ability to gain and organize principles from Scripture. Understanding is the application of those principles to daily living. Someone wrote, “Your mind is not a storehouse to be filled but a garden to be tilled.” Second, you can enjoy a life of pleasing God—“that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” (v. 10) To “walk worthy” means (a) being fruitful in every good work; and (b) increasing in the knowledge of God. Third, you can enjoy a life of increasing power—“strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy.” (v. 11) It is interesting that Paul uses two similar but different words in that verse: they are both related to the attitude that a person has during trials. Patience has to do with enduring difficult circumstances; longsuffering refers to enduring difficult people. Fourth, you can enjoy a life of enduring gratitude—“giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.” (v. 12) Soren Kierkegard wrote, “There are, in the end, only two ways open to us: to honestly and honorably make an admission of how far we are from the Christianity of the New Testament, or to perform skillful tricks to conceal the true situation.” Are you becoming like Christ?

Sin cera, Erik

Erik O. Garthe is Associate Pastor at Canton Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland.

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