Study Desk

And my God will fill your life and your pastures with everything you need accordin' to everything that was given to you through Jesus.

Howdy, boys!This letter is written by Paul, chosen by God to ride for his outfit, and our pard, Timothy.

To all the cowboys riding for the Lord around Colossae, we pray your grass is green, your cattle are fat, and that all the great things of God surround you.

This faith and love is being passed on through you from the hope y'all have in God. Y'all know heaven's gates will be opened to y'all when you come riding in. This is the good news y'all heard us preach about.

This is the reason we always pray for y'all. We never stop praying for y'all. We ask that God fill your hearts with knowledge, your life with wisdom, and your heads with understanding.

Jesus is the visible image of our invisible God. Jesus is the firstborn, the heir, of all creation.

God was glad to hand the reins to his son and ride with him and in him.

There was a time we were all enemies of God through the evil things we did.

But now, God has brought you home through the only cowboy who could change our hearts. Jesus's death now presents us pure and holy, not by the things we do, but by the blood he shed. We are free from blemish and wart. But we are also free from accusation and condemnation—

God has given me the job and the responsibility of giving y'all the truth—the entire truth that has been hidden.

So we spread the good news. We warn people about the box canyon of sin and self-dependence as well as teach with wisdom that can only come from God. We want to present all people perfect before God. The only way this happens is through Christ.

My goal for them is to be a complete crew, being able to accomplish any task God sets before them. This can only be done by loving one another. Then they can have complete confidence in understanding God's mysterious plan. This plan isn't a thing, it's a person. That person is Jesus Christ.

Jesus is God in human form. One who we can talk to, listen to, and relate to.

You rode to the grave with him in baptism and you'll ride with him in the new life you have when he brought you out of the grave just as God did for him.

You were dead in your sin, but God made you alive in Christ.

Jesus put a whipping on the enemies of God by his triumph on the cross.

If you truly have a new life in Christ, set your thoughts on him, not rules about yourself. Jesus is riding at the right hand of God. He has offered you a place in his work, but you'll never accomplish anything by beating yourself up with rules you can never follow.

You died to the past, but new life is found in the present, and the presence of God.

Ride off from all the things you used to ride for—sexual nastiness, corruption and desecration, lustful thoughts, and greed, which makes money and possessions your god.

These are the things God will destroy. Don't be one who is destroyed along with them. Make no mistake, God is coming and the things of this world will be destroyed along with all who partake in it.