Powerful Passages for Powerful Living, Pt. 9(b)
Study Guide, August 9, 2026
Pastor Clay Olsen
One of the most powerful features of nature is ‘lightning.’ And some fascinating things about lightning are that a single lightning bolt can be 50,000 degrees. And that is hotter than the surface of the Sun, at 10,000 degrees! And, of course, the ‘Boom’ or thunder is from the explosion from the heat-fueled expanding air. Plus, lightning really can strike the same place twice. In fact, the Empire State Building gets struck 25 to 100 times a year. As far as people, 90% of people survive a lightning strike…so that’s good. And…a lightning strike can leave a tattoo on you, too. But that’s not the place to go looking for one. And yet, if you were, Florida is the place to go, as that state gets the most lightning strikes. Between Orlando and Tampa is what they call ‘Lightning Alley.’ But lightning is attracted to the tallest things around you, like towers and field-goal posts.1 So the moral of the story is: ‘Don’t climb field-goal posts in a lightning storm.’ Although, that does sound like a good country song, don’t you think?
Anyway, nothing is as powerful as the changes that God makes in raising the dead to life, both in one day putting on our immortal bodies, and also, and presently, in God giving new life to our once dead spirit…or our once separated human spirit from God’s spirit. And then the resulting changes that God then makes in our lives and destinies, as we co-operate with God in acting on these very changes, are what we find the Apostle Paul powerfully praying about for us all in Col.1:9-14. Last week we looked at verse 9 where Paul prays that we would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. So let’s continue unpacking this powerful prayer.
Col.1:10 – “…so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God…” NASB It’s important to note that our worth to God is priceless and it is constant, since we His very own sons and daughters. And yet, our walk with Him and our works for Him vary in our faithfulness and consistency…based upon the manner in which we do so, as in ‘a worthy manner.’ And to ‘walk in a manner worthy’ of the Lord is to live in a way that increasingly reflects the character, priorities, and purposes of Jesus Christ because we belong to Him.
Again, followers of Christ are fully accepted and adopted into God’s family through faith in Christ—secure in their standing as children, justified, and under no condemnation (John 1:12; Romans 8:1, 15–17; Ephesians 1:5–6; Galatians 4:4–7). That acceptance is not earned or maintained by performance. At the same time, Scripture clearly teaches that Christians can still either please or grieve God in their ongoing relationship of fellowship with Him and discipleship for Him. Just think about that: Our God is not a distant nor disconnected God, who is unfeeling or unaffected by the affections and actions of His children. No, just the opposite: Our God has given His children the power to give either joy or grief to their Heavenly Father. And that our God has made Himself that vulnerable to our affections and our actions is a marvelous wonder in and of itself. But that is exactly how it is in our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
Note Ps.147:11 – “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.” NKJV Believers are repeatedly urged to live in ways that please God—through faith, obedience, love, and good works that flow from letting God the Holy Spirit be in charge of our daily lives. 1 Thess. 4:1,2 – “Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more.”
And the same New Testament also warns that sin and ungodly patterns can grieve the Holy Spirit who indwells believers. Ephesians 4:30 – “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Again, salvation and family status rest on Christ’s finished work, not on our fluctuating performance. However, realize and understand that pleasure or grief in the experience of our Lord and God in His experience with us relates to the quality of our relationship with Him, the faithfulness of our walk with Him, and our cooperation with the Spirit’s ongoing work of sanctification in our life as we make that our ambition.
In short, a Christian remains a child of God even when grieving Him, just as an earthly child remains part of the family while still able to bring either joy or sorrow to a parent. So in knowing that power that God has given us to affect His pleasure or grief, it should cause us to make our ambition what Paul made his ambition. Question: So what is your highest ambition in life? It’s great to be ambitious about many things, blessing your family, serving your Church, contributing to your community in your vocation, and supporting your country in civil righteousness, and so on. Those are important and rewardable. But there is one thing that, as a rescued and redeemed child of the Most High God…there is one thing that is to be our highest ambition, our ‘first things first’, like it was with the Apostle Paul. 2 Cor. 5:9 – “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.” Like the Apostle taught us: Make pleasing Jesus Christ your highest ambition each day! And make guarding against grieving the Spirit of Christ your greatest caution each day.
Now note: When pleasing Jesus is your ambition, bearing fruit will be your contribution, as well as your consolation. We will be blessed in bearing fruit for Christ, and we will enjoy blessed communion with Christ. When we remain close to Christ, we begin bearing spiritual fruit. And that spiritual fruit will replace the natural weeds of our old nature. Christ’s love replaces our selfishness. The Spirit’s patience replaces our irritability. Our faithfulness replaces compromise. Our kindness replaces harshness…and so on.
And it’s these very things that point others to the One Source of our salvation and our sanctification. And it’s in these very things that God will then be able to use us in doing His will in our speech, in our integrity, in our work ethic, in our marriage and family, in our responses under pressure, and in every other area that become opportunities to honor our Savior as we walk in this ‘worthy manner’ of seeking to please Him in all things.
Remember, these daily responsibilities of our life become more and more reasonable and rewardable to us because of our daily relationship with the One who loves us and saved us and wants to do life with us. Christ is with us in every task, every trial, every act of obedience, every joy, every sorrow…in simply every-thing! Our religion and religious works are based upon our relationship with our Redeemer, who is our ‘Immanuel’… ‘God with us!’
Plus, here is one clear way that you can actually measure yourself as to the measure of your ‘closeness’ to Christ. For the closer you get to Christ…commune with Christ…grow in Christ, the further you get from yourself…in relation to your self-focus, and your self-pride, and your self-occupation, and so forth…those are the dark things of our old self that form a shadow over the light of Christ in our life. For the closer you get to Christ the more the John the Baptist principle will grow and show in your life: “He must increase, and I must decrease.” Or as my Dad used to put it: “The person who is occupied with their own self is occu-pewed to everyone else!” Yeah, self-pride might smell good to the one who has it, but it stinks to everyone around them…especially to God.
Then, working in tandem with bearing fruit is increasing in the knowledge of God. Notice something here: Doctrine produces discipline. Truth changes behavior. The Christian life is living a righteous life because it’s based upon the righteousness of God. And notice that Paul didn’t simply pray that believers would come to know more about God…he prays that they would know God Himself. There is a huge difference. Some believers know about theology…they know about Bible history…they know about prophecy…then know about Hebrew words and Greek words…yet they don’t show much about the love and compassion and proper use of justice of God in how they talk to others and how they treat others around them at all! You can’t have intimacy with God and inconsideracy with others. You are only fooling yourself and are being unfaithful to God.
Again, with this ‘knowledge of God’…knowing God…seeking to better understand and commune with God…this, too, has to be a high goal of ours, a high priority of ours, as it was with the Apostles and Prophets. No one accidentally comes to have a deep and delightful experiential knowledge of God. That can only become a blessed reality from an intentionally purposed plan and labor of your life. So, a question: What are you doing in order to grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? What steps are you taking to get closer to God? You see, in order to walk in that ‘worthy manner’ for Christ you have to take steps to get closer to Christ in knowing Him better and in doing His will over your own will.
And to measure how well you know God, try this with someone else: ‘Describe God to someone else the best you can, as you have come to know Him to be.’ Like, “Here is what I have come to know of God up to this point in my life.” That would make for a great conversation, and maybe a great revelation about the things of God that you are still in need to learn further and deeper and higher, in relation to; God’s Self-existence and Eternality, His Creatorship, His Holiness, His Justice, His Sovereignty, His Saviorhood, His Lordship, His Love, His Omniscience, and so on. Now of course, this will be our eternal education! But it is also to be our present priority and fascination and joy!
But we’ll need power for that. And Paul prays for that as well. Take a look: Col. 1:11 – “…strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience…” Notice whose power it is. It’s not ours. It’s not our ‘will-power.’ Remember, all we supply is the ‘will’…God supplies the ‘power!’ God reminded Israel’s King about whose power it is that we need and that we need to learn to look to, and depend upon, and to act upon… ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.” Zech. 4:6 It is the power of the Holy Spirit that produces the fruit that we are to bear in our works and our service for God and to others. For, as Jesus reminded us, “Apart from Me, you can do…..NOTHING!” Nothing of eternally lasting value that is…nothing of Kingdom building…nothing of Spirit-led and Spirit-empowered eternal change and blessing. Remember, we are to work alongside of God the Holy Spirit…never out front or apart from Him. Stay in the Yoke with Christ’s Spirit, and you will experience His strength and His power for doing what you need to do in living out God’s commandments and will for your life.
Rest in the reality that God never calls us to live the Christian life in our own power and strength. The Holy Spirit supplies what God commands. And note how Paul specifically pointed out that what our dependence upon God produces, are these blessed attributes of ‘steadfastness’ or ‘endurance’ and ‘patience.’ Mark it down: It is the Spirit of God that produces stability in our soul and life. And this ‘stability’ is a wonderful possession and experience in our day-to-day life, because the world around us is trying to knock us off balance…and knock us down…and knock us out. Remember, Paul alluded to life as a ‘boxing match’…1Cor. 9:26,27 – “Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”
Paul was making use of the Greek Games to teach these Corinthian believers, and us, about strategic Christian living. So he referred to the boxing matches of the Isthmian Games going on there in Greece. I wonder if they gave a prize to those who could actually pronounce ‘Isthmian.’ Who came up with that name? Although, Corinth was located on an Isthmus…which not to be confused with an Island. And the Isthmian Games were held both the year before and the year after the Olympic Games, (the second and fourth years of an Olympiad). And then the Pythian Games were held in the third year of the Olympiad cycle. I figured you really wanted to know that…so there you go.
Now, where were we…Right, boxing. This is a battle prayer of Paul’s as well. For Paul is praying for us to be prepared for the inevitable trials and obstacles and battles of life. And there will be times in our lives when, by God’s power, that the battle will be completely overcome and finished. And there will be other times when the battle…the boxing…goes on. But those are also times that this ‘supply of God’s power’ for steadfastness, endurance, and patience will also go on, in us and through us. And if the burden is not removed in some way, the burden itself will be made to bear fruit in the lives of God’s children and in other’s lives in other ways…because God never allows this world to take more from His children than He will give to them in replacement and in compensation. And be assured that in time we will overcome all battles because Christ has overcome the world, and we are ‘Overcomers’ in Christ! God’s sufficient grace is also God’s sufficient strength to face any foe, to box any fighter, and to overcome any obstacle.
As you can see, we are going to have to continue our perusal of Paul’s prayer for us here in Colossians. But let’s be reminded that the Christian life is never merely about becoming better people; it is about knowing God more deeply, and as we behold His glory, it’s then that we are transformed more and more into the same image…the image of Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:18). The pattern we can see throughout the Bible is:
- Theology should produce doxology.
- Revelation should produce reverence.
- Knowledge should produce worship.
- Worship should produce obedience.
So remember, as has been stated by so many before us: “The goal of theology is not simply to fill the mind, but to inflame the heart and transform the life.”
Heb. 13:20,21 – “Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord,
equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
- Fieldandstream.com/lightning
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