THE DOMAIN OF DARKNESS

We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, ¹⁰ so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. ¹¹ May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy ¹² giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. ¹³ He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. ¹⁴ We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, in Him.

(Colossians 1:9-13)

Clearly, I’m missing something here in this transference from the Domain of Darkness into the Kingdom of His Beloved Son. This transference is our spiritual reality, but some days I feel like I still have more parts of me stuck back there in the Dark Domain, than feeling like a Child of Light. I have wrestled with this truth, as well as the Scripture passage in 2 Corinthians 5:7, about being new creatures in Christ, often in my life. Paul speaks about the battle with his own dark side in Romans 7, concluding that he needed rescue from the body of this battle over flesh and spirit.  He kisses us with Romans 8:1, in the answering of his own question about deliverance: “There is therefore now, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”

I have tended to think of verses 9-12, of Colossians 1, as a duty list that I must somehow conjure and keep, as a follower of Jesus Christ. But that is not what it is at all. It is a prayer of the Apostle Paul’s, over these precious believers in Colossae, to experience the reality of this transfer that has already taken place in the Spiritual Realm.

I have used this prayer to pray over my husband and children often, but never thought to speak it over myself, embracing it as my new, solid, and firm foundation. I have failed to fully embrace the new Reality into which I have been transferred. So, I will now speak it here:

God will fill me with His will, give me all wisdom and spiritual understanding. He will enable me to walk worthy of Him, fully pleasing Him. That’s my Spiritual inheritance. I will bear fruit in every good work, growing in my knowledge of God, because He is faithful and will finish what He has started. I will be strengthened with all power, not according to what I can conjure or manifest in my own strength, but according to His power, His glorious might. I will have all endurance, patience and joy available to me as I embrace my New Reality in Christ with every ounce of my spirit, soul and body. I will forever give thanks to my Heavenly Father who has enabled me to share in the inheritance of the Saints of Light. 

I have been, (paste tense-finished work) transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of His Beloved Son, in whom I have redemption, the forgiveness of my sins, fully. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, this is your new Reality. All that still feels somehow stuck in the Dark Domain is, in reality, already transferred. It’s the believing, embracing and walking out of our New Reality in Jesus that enable us to see ourselves as free from this once Dark Domain that ruled over and within us for too long.  Speak these truths out loud to yourself, and any discouraged Christian you may know. We need to rest in His promises, and not our feelings.