The gospel's progress

Paul's thanksgiving is intimately and profoundly related to the gospel (God's grace audible and in action), its progress and right reception. He reminds the Colossians of this gospel's powerful progress: locally and globally, intensively and extensively, immediately and continually.

He brings before the eyes of the people of God the divine dynamism of the gospel, coming under God's direction and with Spiritual power, making discernible progress across the world. How far removed this is from the petty and provincial, shallow and divisive errors peddled by the Colossian errorists! This is the march of the kingdom of the living God.

Do we see the Lord God always at work in the spread of the gospel? Do we recognise that all Christians everywhere are such because they have received the word of the truth of the gospel? Have we considered our own entry into Christ's kingdom, praising God and determined to maintain the gospel's powerful purity? Do we have confidence in the gospel that Christ gave us to proclaim to the whole world? Do we pray that it would operate powerfully in Christ's church and among the unsaved? Have we truly obtained the heavenly hope of which this gospel speaks for ourselves?