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Notice for a moment the double reference to knowledge or realization.
"That you may be filled with the realization of His will . . . . . increasing in the
realization of God."
To know or to realize God is a process, and we can only know God as we get to know
the way in which He has revealed Himself. Thus if we know His will, we make a
beginning; if we know His grace, His love, His wisdom and His faithfulness we are
growing up in the realization of God. To fully know God would mean a perfect
comprehension of all His attributes and the mysteries of His Being, but, like the love of
Christ, this passeth knowledge. The magnitude of the theme however must not deter us;
we each have our measure, and more is not expected of us. Let us, however, observe the
connecting links that unite the opening knowledge of His will with the closing knowledge
of Himself.
His will--wisdom--walk--all pleasing--God.
The walk too is of an extraordinarily high standard. Eph. 4: exhorts us to walk
worthy of our calling, and Phil. 1: exhorts us to live worthy of the gospel, but Col. 1:
exhorts us to walk worthy of the Lord. How can this be attained? Only by closely
following the course here laid down. It is impossible to think of walking worthy of the
Lord while contravening His Will. So far as we are concerned His Will is His Word. His
Word being given to us, we need, as Eph. 1: 15-19 showed, the transforming power of
prayer, so that revelation may be turned into realization, and the "spirit" of that revelation
may be given us, or, as Col. 1: puts it, "in all wisdom and spiritual understanding".
A walk that is worthy of the Lord will be unto all pleasing. The great desire of the
heart will be that He may be well pleased with us. This will have the negative effect of
making us independent of the approval of man. Well pleasing is not confined to sound
speech; it is inclusive. It is the Lord's good pleasure that the root shall produce fruit, and
consequently this Colossians prayer is for an all-round development and growth in grace.
To this we must add the prayer of Epaphras in Col. 4: 12.
"Labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all
the will of God."
Here is another gathering up of the prayer themes of Ephesians and Philippians. The
prayer that the saints may stand "perfect" takes up the whole epistle to the Philippians,
and especially chapter 3:, where the Apostle stretches out toward the goal. It includes
the prayer of Phil. 1:, where "discernment" is the mark of the perfect (Heb. 5:). It
embraces also the prayer of Eph. 3:, where the goal is that the believer should be filled
unto all the fullness of God, for Epaphras not only prayed that the Colossians should
stand perfect, but also complete, a word that answers to the fullness of Eph. 3: Further,
it rounds off the prayer of Col. 1:, for this standing, whether it be perfect, or whether it
be complete, is "in all the will of God".