The apostle Paul ends his prayer in Colossians chapter 1 with these words of encouragement, “Giving thanks to the Father, who qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light, who rescued us from the domain of darkness, and who transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col 1:12-13).
Who qualified you? The Father. Who rescued you? The Father. Who transferred you? The Father.
Your heavenly Father qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints. You have your papers! You are approved! God Himself has stamped a big red APPROVED on your papers. You are qualified to be here in the company of saints, because God Himself has made you a saint; a saint who is walking in the light.
Your heavenly Father rescued you from the domain of darkness. By the death and resurrection of His beloved Son, you have been delivered from the darkness of both the penalty of sin and the power of sin. As a new covenant saint, you have been set free from sin’s power. Sin shall no longer have dominion over you. Sin shall no longer be your master (Rom 6:14).
And finally, your heavenly Father transferred you into His kingdom. We are now – in the present age – citizens of the kingdom of God. The words “rescued” and “transferred” are past tense. This transfer, this move to the kingdom of God, is not in the distant far-off future. It has already happened when we placed our faith in Christ. And this transfer is a complete “drag and drop” into the new kingdom. We didn’t just have something added on to our old home, some new wing added to our old residence. You were lifted from your old home in “the domain of darkness” and dropped into your new home in the “kingdom of His beloved Son”, the kingdom of God. This kingdom is your new home in the here and now.
Your new home is an invisible kingdom ruled by an invisible King, our heavenly Father. But even if He is invisible, we know a lot of great things about Him by His revelation in His Word. Invisible does not mean unknown. We have learned over the past few weeks, that our invisible Father is extremely present in our lives as our provider, our gift-giver, our personal trainer in righteousness, our deliverer, the One who lives inside us, the River who flows from within, and the one who loves us very much.
And even with all these wonderful things we have learned about our heavenly Father, His greatest revelation about Himself is yet to come. We will discover it next time.