This Day in History: 0000-04-04

April 4 – Colossians 1:3-6 & 9-10 

We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.
This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.
So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of His will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. 

It’s so easy in seasons of trial and sadness to feel as if we’re all alone. We have a tendency to isolate and focus all our attention on our troubles. We forget there are people, all over the world, experiencing the same ups and downs of a life spent in pursuit of God. People whose hope, like ours, comes from the confidence that eternity with God awaits.  

One of the surest ways of regaining some perspective is to resist the urge to pull away from the body of Christ, and to instead pour into it. The life of a believer should be marked by constant attentiveness in prayer to the trials and triumphs of the worldwide church. In other words, we should be praying for each other. A lot! 

Let’s seek out information about the work God is doing all over this big wide world. Surely, we will be encouraged and uplifted as we hear stories of brothers and sisters in Christ whose lives are bearing fruit for the Kingdom. Certainly, we’ll feel less sorry for ourselves as we hear the accounts of those who suffer for the cause of Christ as well. In all of it, may we be drawn to our knees. 

May we pray daily that the Holy Spirit will impart spiritual wisdom and understanding to our brothers and sisters all over the world. May we petition the throne of our gracious God, asking that our collective lives be pleasing to Him, and that He will bring forth much fruit. Let’s intercede for one another, asking our Father to mark our lives with constant and continual growth as we learn to know God better and better!