What, me worthy?

We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord…. —Colossians 1:9b-10a (NIV)

I knew I shouldn’t punch my friend. Mom had told me many, many times: no hitting, no fighting. Knowing the rule wasn’t the issue. I knew the rule. I understood the rule. But Billy had made me mad, so I punched him and gave him a bloody nose.

We boys knew we weren’t supposed to play with fire. That’s why we dug a tunnel in the woods so the three of us could go under the earth, out of sight, and light some wood on fire where none of our parents would see us. It was only unfortunate that there was more smoke than we anticipated. We knew the rule; we were punished because we knew the rule and lit a fire anyway.

I’m not sure why the Apostle Paul is talking to the Colossians in this way, though I imagine that as men and women who were coming to faith out of a pantheistic and pagan society, their conception of how to “live a life worthy of the Lord” was not as informed as that of the Jews, who had a very long history of moral instruction by God since the time of the exodus from Egypt.

So Paul tells the Colossians to be filled with the “wisdom and understanding that the [Holy] Spirit gives.”

Good advice. But speaking for myself, the problem isn’t knowing, but doing. I look in the mirror and see a person who constantly fails to “live a life worthy of the Lord.”

Living in a manner worthy of the Lord is a very high bar to reach. I would go so far as to say that it’s a standard that’s completely unattainable. So what’s the point here?

Paul gives a few hints about what a worthy life might entail. He says:

bear fruit in every good work (v10)

So sure, watching for and taking opportunities to do good works is certainly something I can do, at least if I’m paying attention to the people around me each day. This idea about bearing fruit in every good work suggests to me that these good things we do will result in God doing something beneficial and tangible through us in the people we help and love and pray for and encourage.

Doing good things won’t make me worthy before God, but it at least makes me a somewhat more decent human being.

Paul continues with a short list of the things that arise from, or perhaps are foundational too, this living of a worthy life:

• growing in the knowledge of God (Col. 1:10);

• being strengthened to live with endurance and patience (Col. 1:11);

• being joyfully thankful to God the Father (Col 1:12).

All good things, I grant you, but how do any of these make me worthy? How does anything I do, anything I accomplish, no matter how good and pure and selfless, create within me a means of living in a manner that is worthy of the Lord?

Just a few weeks back, in a moment of frustration, I made a careless and hurtful comment to a friend, one that I instantly regretted and immediately apologized for, but the words were out, the damage was done, the hurt truly hurt.

I find myself constantly failing—in more ways than I really want to think about—to live in a way that is consistent with my claim to be a disciple of Jesus.

The life of faith is not merely an assent to certain beliefs, it is the reordering of our selves around those beliefs in such a way that our thoughts and actions and values are all changed by this intimate relationship with the holy God.

As James writes: Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? (James 2:17 The Message)

But Paul concludes his exhortation to worthiness with a crucial bit of context:

[The Father] has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. —Colossians 1:12b-14 (NIV)

There it is. To the extent that I am able to live a life worthy of the Lord, it is all because I have been worthiness pre-qualified by the death and resurrection of Christ, I have been rescued from my unworthy sinfulness by the blood of Christ, and I have been brought into worthiness by my faith in the redeeming, life-changing, sin-forgiving mercy of God in Christ.

My meager acts of goodness are not negated by my many failures. I am grieved by them, but I must not allow myself to despair because of them. My willful turning away from what I fully know to be right in any given moment cannot make me unworthy; it merely testifies to how much more I need the goodness of God in my life.

My attempts to live in a manner worthy of the Lord are made worthy and will bear fruit because God has rescued me from the worst of myself and has made me worthy by proclamation, even as I have so far to go in the realities of my daily life.

Which is why, I suppose, Paul makes his opening request a prayer for the Colossians. It should be my prayer, too, and yours.

May God fill us with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives so that we may live a life worthy of the Lord.

Amen. Lord, help me to understand, help me to see, help me to live rightly.