We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10Â Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
11Â We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, 12Â always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. 13Â For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, 14Â who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
15Â Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
    He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,
16Â for through him God created everything
    in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see
    and the things we can’t see—
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
    Everything was created through him and for him.
17Â He existed before anything else,
    and he holds all creation together.
18Â Christ is also the head of the church,
    which is his body.
He is the beginning,
    supreme over all who rise from the dead.
    So he is first in everything.
19Â For God in all his fullness
    was pleased to live in Christ,
20Â and through him God reconciled
    everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
    by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.
21Â This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 22Â Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.
23 But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News.