Colossians 1:9-23 - Prayer For Maturity Based On Christ's Preeminence

⁹ For this cause we also, from the day that we heard it, cease not to pray for you, and to request that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding: ¹⁰ that ye may walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; ¹¹ strengthened with all might according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joy; ¹² giving thanks unto the Father, who hath made us meet for a portion of the inheritance of the saints in light: ¹³ who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son: ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption by his blood, even the remission of sins.

¹⁵ Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of the whole creation: ¹⁶ for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all were created by Him, and for Him. ¹⁷ He is before all, and by Him all things subsist. ¹⁸ And He is the head of the body, which is the church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. ¹⁹ For it pleased the Father, that all fulness should dwell in Him; ²⁰ and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace by the blood of his cross; by Him only, whether they be things on earth, or things in heaven.

²¹ And you that were formerly alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, ²² yet now hath He reconciled in the body of his flesh, through death, to present you holy, and unblameable, and unreproveable in his sight: ²³ if so be ye continue grounded and settled in the faith, and be not moved from the gospel, which ye have heard, and which hath been preached throughout the whole creation, of which I Paul am a minister.