McMahon Life

Colossians 1:3-6

In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.  You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you.  Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.

There are two portions of this text that stand out to me.

1. What Paul had heard about the church there at Colossae: their faith and their love for all the saints.  Paul says that both of those things are present because of “the hope laid up for you in heaven.”  A natural outflow of understanding the hope that we have in Jesus is faith in God and love toward one another.
2. That there was a turning point, a change in behavior, “from the day [they] heard [of the hope] and truly comprehended the grace of God.”  There is a difference between simply hearing and hearing and comprehending.

I want to pursue this thought of “comprehending the grace of God” because it seems to be important in this text.  It is the fulcrum upon which life moves from being to bearing fruit.  Paul said that the church at Colossae began bearing fruit on the day they heard and comprehended.  This could mean two things: first it could be that they comprehended at the first moment they heard, and from that point fruit has been born; second it could mean that the day that they finally comprehended what they heard, the first day that paired hearing and comprehension together, marked the beginning of an outflow of fruit from their lives.  Paul addresses fruit in other places.

It is this second thought that interests me in particular – the possibility that we can hear and not bear fruit because we lack comprehension.  I am not sure if this is the particular angle that Paul was going for here in Colossians, but when I look at my life, and the culture around me, it makes a lot of sense in this context.  Isn’t this what Jesus addresses when he speaks of the seeds that fall on the path (Matthew 13:19) – those who hear, but fail to implement what they heard so that it makes any impact on their lives?

Isn’t this who I often am?  Isn’t this who we often are?  With our value of learning, of knowledge, of education, of having the upper hand, it is often difficult to embrace our lack of understanding.  I always want to think that I know things – even when I don’t.  This covers understanding the grace of God as well.  It is natural of us to think that when we first hear of the grace of God that we “get it.”  Especially those of us raised in the church.  We tend to think that we’ve “heard that, know that” when the reality is we’ve heard it but we definitely haven’t comprehended, and therefore don’t “know” the grace of God.  Or maybe we know a little and assume that’s all there is.

What Paul said about the church at Colossae was that their moment of comprehension of the grace of God directly resulted in fruit being grown.

Let us then seek to be people who not only hear, but who truly seek to comprehend the grace of God.

Let us not be people who simply hear the truth of God (James 1:22), but those who because of our comprehension of the incredibleness of God bear fruit accordingly.

How then do we comprehend the grace of God?  We must begin by recognizing that it is far bigger than the capacity of anyone to understand, and therefore its comprehension begins with the understanding that we will never fully comprehend it.  Slightly ironic, I know.  We then must constantly place ourselves in positions to stand in awe of God, situations where we are brought back to the recognition that without God we are and have nothing, and with God we are and have everything.  From this place we recognize that our responsibility is to live in response to that incredible gift of grace.  That is why “comprehension” leads to “bearing fruit” in a way that simply hearing cannot.

God, help me to stand in your presence in awe of you.
You have given me everything good that I have.
You have given me life and purpose and hope.  Thank you.
I ask only for continued grace to live a life in pursuit of you,
that I may learn to walk faithfully in all the gifts that you have given me.
I love you deeply.  Thank you!