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“For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Colossians 2:5-7).

When I teach from the Bible, whether speaking or writing such as our online teaching ministry, I like to take the Scripture text and present it phrase by phrase which is an element of the expository method.

Yesterday I shared that my personal anchor verse for 2025 is Colossians 2:6,7. As I was preparing for a series on this text and my teaching on Sunday in our Crossroads ABF class I noticed the selection begins with "So then".

So, much like we are to ask "what's the 'therefore' there for?", I needed to expand my study to see what "so then" was referring to which took me back to the context. In the verse that immediately proceeds "so then" Paul writes, "For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is".

After musing on this I see this itself is another great verse! (not surprisingly)

“For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit” Paul was not physically with the Colossian believers when he wrote this since he was in prison. How grateful we are that he didn't emotionally languish and reason to himself that he was in no mood to write.

Rather, he cast aside thoughts of his imprisonment and joined his brothers and sisters "in spirit" which meant they were foremost on his heart and in his prayers. Consider how this applies to your life. Certainly the ability to stay connected is so much easier now for us than it was in Paul's day! Yesterday I received an email note from a reader in South Africa, likely just seconds after he sent it.

“and delight” Consider those you delight (rejoice) in seeing God’s work in their lives, especially if you have had a personal impact on them. It's one of the greatest joys of ministry!

Last night as I sat around a hot campfire at the Refreshing Mountain Retreat I was considering those in my ministry who have given us great joy and Yvette came to mind. She came into our church in New England in the mid-nineties a broken soul with a story suitable for the radio program "Unshackled". At first she was very unstable in her walk with the Lord but after much prayer support and godly counsel over an extended period of time she fully experienced God's redemptive power and now, along with her husband Wayne, they direct the Adult and Teen Challenge of Connecticut. I had the privilege of conducting their marriage ceremony in 2006, a few years after we moved to Lancaster County (photo on left).  A link to her testimony is below. What great joy it brings to see them staying faithful and influencing others who desperately need salvation and deliverance from Satan's entrapment!

Paul wrote to the Philippians, "Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved" (4:1). John wrote, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth" (3 John v.4).

What was Paul delighted about?

"to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is". Another version states, “your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ”. Indeed these are two vital characteristics of a serious Christian who is spiritually based which is sorely lacking in many professed followers of Christ today.

The blessing of a life:

Does this describe your life? What steps are you taking to see that it does?

Be encouraged today! Hebrews 3:13

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber

Daily prayer: Father, we consider our brothers and sisters with whom we're unable to have fellowship due to distance, time limitations, or poor health, nevertheless they're on our mind and we uphold them in prayer, that they would stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured of their faith in Christ. We also pray that their walk would be steady and disciplined in the ways of godliness so they grow in their walk with You and influence others for the kingdom of God. Keep us faithfully in step with You, Father, so we will be a shining example and never a stumbling block to those we love in Christ. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen.