Hooray for the Colossians! St Paul is clearly extremely thankful for what is happening in that church. He has heard of their faith in Our Lord; he has heard of their love for one another; and he has heard of their hope in the promise of Heaven. What more could he wish for?
And yet he does want more from the Colossians! They are not done yet.
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St Paul wants the Colossians to be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; he wants them to walk worthy of the Lord and please Him; he wants them to be fruitful in all good works and increasing in the knowledge of God.
Why? Why does St Paul want more for the Colossians? Is their faith in the Lord not enough? If the Colossians have already been saved, then St Paul's prayers are irrelevant: they'll be answered in Heaven so there's no need to make any spiritual progress on Earth
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There is a temptation to see our salvation as a one-off event in our lives. If that's true then the moment we are saved we have to start twiddling our thumbs until the Second Coming. If we are saved at one moment in time then our life from then on is inconsequential - it doesn't matter.
But then, you could say, isn't our life from then on just a case of helping others see the light of Christ and spreading the Gospel? That's hardly thumb-twiddling. This is a good point: if we have faith in God then we should love our neighbour as ourselves. But if we are saved, then it doesn't matter whether we do love our neighbours as ourselves. All the saved people could just cease to preach the Gospel and that would be the end of that.
It seems clear to say that we are saved from the moment we believe is not consistent with what St Paul understands nor what Christ's salvation means. The fact is that we are meant to grow and, as the Lord says, bear fruit that shall lasts. If our fruit is to last then it cannot be the fruit of this world which will pass away. If our fruit is to last then we are growing it for Eternity. We are becoming saved because we are becoming like Christ. It isn't enough for the man to believe that Jesus will raise his daughter, he has to ask Him. It isn't enough for the woman to believe that her flow of blood can be stopped, she must touch the hem of the Lord's garment. Faith demands action and that action will cultivate faith. In that sense, in choosing to follow God, we play our own part in our own creation and perfection. That creation and perfection depends absolutely on God's love for us, but it is God's love that gives us the choice as to how we grow in Him. Jesus saves us but we have a choice in precisely who we are for Him to save.
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We have to see that our salvation in Christ is a process: a journey towards the horizon where God stands in His infinite light. The Colossians will bear the fruit of the Holy Ghost at the prayers of St Paul. And he will pray for us too - if we choose to ask him rather than twiddling our thumbs waiting for salvation.
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