Know Christ and Live Your Calling

Colossians 2:1-5    
1 For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. 5 For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.

Paul struggled with the spiritual state of those in Colossi and Laodice (where Revelation 3:14-22 talks later of that church’s downhill slide into utter complacency).  The prayer and desire of his ministry was for these to all be encouraged and not give up.  They should instead seek a unity in love for Christ and therefore each other as they strived for knowing the truth to know Christ personally in ever-increasing ways.  By grasping God’s deep treasures revealed in the scriptures, they were to be assured in the standing by understanding who God is, what Christ has done, and who they then were in Him as a body, the church.  He also warned them of others who brought false teaching to detour them from the truth by emotional or intellectual persuasion contrary to the word of God.  In the end, Paul wanted them to know they were not alone in this struggle of the gospel’s sanctification race, but that he ran with them in that life and was deeply thrilled to see them hold fast to trusting Christ and doing their best to live according to their calling.  Here is a pattern and exhortation for us to seek Christ above all together by knowing Him accurately and personally through right comprehension of the whole Bible, and so to exercise faith and loving obedience from the heart with God and man.