January 6–Preach the Word

It’s Saturday and I hope you are having a good day. We have had a little warming trend here and that makes it much easier to get outside when it’s not in the single digits. I’m not a fan of cold weather and I’m convinced that hell is bitter cold—an absence of light and heat. It’s not exactly how the Bible describes it, though!


I’ve been studying the book of Colossians and I found a great little tool for the overview. You may have already seen these on YouTube, (I’m usually late to the party) but if not, they are just pretty awesome to help you get in your mind what was going on and how the book was structured. Here’s the link for It and if you haven’t seen it, you should watch it. 

https://youtu.be/QQXOx3VD9Rk


As you know, Paul was in chains for proclaiming that Jesus was the Lord, but while he was in prison, he talked about the many opportunities he had to speak about Christ. Indeed, he believed the very reason that he was there was to bring the good news to the prison guards and because of that, he rejoiced in his chains!


“Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains. Pray that I will proclaim this message as clearly as I should.”

‭‭Colossians‬ ‭4:2-4‬ ‭NLT‬‬


Can you imagine if something as that were to happen to you, would you be able to look for all the ways you could use the awful-whatever to proclaim Jesus? And would your prayer be to share it as clearly as possible? I’m not sure mine would be; im sure I’d be asking for prayer to get free or out of the situation. And of course, I’d whine about the terrible condition of my life. 


But not Paul. Before he asked for prayer, he asked that they “devote themselves” to prayer! And not a passive prayer, but one with an “alert mind” so they would be fully engaged when they were praying for what Paul believed was more important than anything—the spread of the Gospel. 


Today, let’s pray like Paul asks us, with alert minds and for for clear words with which we would proclaim the gospel at every chance we are given. 


Love you dear friend,

Pam


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