Colossians 4:2-6,12

Godliness in our speech.

Paul brings his letter to a close with instruction that the grace of God in the life of believers should affect their speech in a consequential way, in particular by making them people who pray. Prayer is speech directed to God.

We who are believers should be talking to God about our lives: persistently, habitually, regularly. Life is a living, breathing relationship to our heavenly Father expressed and enjoyed by a continual feast of conversation with the Almighty.

This need not be a distraction from the tasks of life. When your day starts with some dedicated moments for prayer, then short sentences throughout the day launched in the direction of the Father about the tasks at hand will often be nearly automatic.

Don’t let difficulties quench the praying. In fact, troubles should be a reminder to pray, as they often are. They arrive in great variety, but all should trigger as the highest priority the renewed confession that God is good for giving our faith the exercise of leaning on Him through difficulty.

Face life with watchfulness; with expectancy look at the future as it comes into view. Ask questions: Lord, what is Your plan in this? What opportunities are You sending my way? What do you want me to do or say?

Fill this speech toward God with thanksgiving. His gifts bring blessing, are completely equipped to give us what we need, and come wave upon wave unstintingly. (James 1:17)

Even the spiritual strength with which He wants to endue us by carrying us through the fire and the storm is such a precious treasure. We can rejoice in the love and care of our Father.

But our prayers are not merely self-absorbed psychotherapy; our attention is on His splendor and on the rest of the world around us, on His agenda for the human race. Paul urged the Colossians to engage in intercessory prayer, praying for others and for Paul himself, in particular.

Paul’s request regarded his proclamation of the gospel while he was in prison. He wanted opportunities for the message to be shared with visitors and his guards, and he wanted the words he chose to make the message clear.

This was appropriate to his calling and circumstances, but he was thoroughly conscious of his need for God’s enablement. He desired prayers on his behalf that he would see the opportunity and that he would discern each visitor’s perspective so that the explanations would make sense.

Our desire expressed in prayer should be that the gospel as it’s presented would cut through a fog of false ideas and push aside other topics that are of an ephemeral and distracting nature.

Our own interaction with unbelievers present us with a need for wisdom and insight. Time is fleeting and we have a limited opportunities to speak to people about this good news. Some people we will interact with over a short period of our life and then they will be gone along their way.

This raises three imperatives. We should seek to share the gospel when the opportunity is right. We should not let unbelievers trap us into participation with their evil deeds, letting our life stand as a reproof to them instead. And finally, discernment to choose wisely in such circumstances can be provided by God if we are asking and aware. Wariness of risks and opportunities is paramount.

The sum is that our speech must always be gracious, rather than snide, demeaning, or holier-than-thou judgmental. But gracious does not mean blah, boring, or irrelevant. Gracious speech can include reproof. It can be zesty and have a tang like salted food, bringing healing and cleansing as well as flavor.

Like Paul we are in need of discernment and situational awareness, so that each person gets from us the conversation that is appropriate for them at that moment.

In the closing salutations, Paul mentions that Epaphras has been praying for the Colossians that they would be “mature and fully assured in all the will of God.” (Colossians 4:12)

“Mature” in the sense of brought to completion and filling up the designed purpose. God has purpose for your life, and He wants you to stand in that state fully today. And beyond today there is a more ultimate form of fullness ahead in glory.

“Fully assured” in the sense of having doubts and instability removed. God has restored believers to a state of soundness and function by the Lord Jesus. Don’t live with any doubts that you have found the best there is in Him.

“In all the will of God” refers to God’s plan for their lives and ours, both in the global Christian life sense which is common to all of us and in the particular specifics of each individual’s circumstances and opportunities.

Grace can and should season our speech and in one particular way: speech toward our heavenly Father that expresses a willing dependence upon Him for life.

Pursuit of wisdom for today from the Ancient of Days

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