Colossians 2:3-8 HCSB
In Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
4 I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with persuasive arguments. 5 For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the strength of your faith in Christ. 6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. 8 Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ.

It was essential to listen to Paul’s warning in his own day: it is even more essential to heed it in our day when the arts of persuasion, and the means by which they can be exercised, are so highly developed. There is a fresh responsibility laid on Christians to examine all teaching for the truthfulness of its content rather than the attractiveness of its packaging. There is a new call to be sceptical of exaggerated rhetoric, the tendentious anecdote, or the theatrical appeal, for nothing is so dangerous as feeble reasoning allied to fast talking.

–R.C. Lucas, The Message of Colossians & Philemon, 1980

Paul’s answer for his friends was startlingly simple; the mystery of all mysteries was the (now public) good news of what Jesus did on the cross for his people (Colossians 1:28-2:5). Moreover, Paul made it plain that maturity came through understanding this gospel better and better, not through laws, experiences and revelations.

–Mark Strom, The Symphony of Scripture

I’m learning the basic gospel message as revealed through Christ is of central importance not just to salvation and then we move on to other things; it is always of central importance.

To preach the gospel to yourself, then, means that you continually face up to your own sinfulness and then flee to Jesus through faith in His shed blood and righteous life. It means that you appropriate, again by faith, the fact that Jesus fully satisfied the law of God, that He is your propitiation, and that God’s holy wrath is no longer directed toward you.”
…
“This is the gospel by which we were saved, and it is the gospel by which we must live every day of our Christian lives…If you are not firmly rooted in the gospel and have not learned to preach it to yourself every day, you will soon become discouraged and will slack off in your pursuit of holiness.

–Jerry Bridges

Colossians has become one of my favorites and I will revisit it in the future.

Here is a related post I came across:
A Sense of Christ’s Sufficiency

This illustration is inspired by what I read in the book Trusting God by Jerry Bridges. It’s a wonderful, life-changing book that I read during a very stressful time in my life. Here is a quote related to the illustration:

[God's] sovereignty is exercised primarily for His glory. But because you and I are in Christ Jesus, His glory and our good are linked together. Because we are united with Christ, whatever is for His glory is also for our good. And whatever is for our good is for His glory.

God’s Sovereignty (TNIV for all these):

Isaiah 45:7
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.

Psalm 135:6
The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths.

Exodus 4:11
The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord?

God’s Glory:

John 9:2-3
His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Isaiah 40:3-5
A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Revelation 4:11
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

Our Good:

Romans 8:28-30
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

I hope those who are color inclined can appreciate the text’s secondary colors that correspond to the triangle’s primary colors.

I always thought that God’s providence means that He will provide. Apparently I got that wrong, probably in part because the word provide is within the word providence.

In the book Trusting God by Jerry Bridges, he quotes J.I. Packer defining it as:

The unceasing activity of the Creator whereby, in overflowing bounty and goodwill, He upholds His creatures in ordered existence, guides and governs all events, circumstances, and free acts of angels and men, and directs everything to its appointed goal, for His own glory.

Jerry Bridges himself has developed a more succinct version:

God’s providence is His constant care for and His absolute rule over all his creation for His own glory and the good of His people.

For further reference and Scripture:

Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary
Providence
literally means foresight, but is generally used to denote God’s preserving and governing all things by means of second causes (Ps. 18:35; Ps. 63:8; Acts 17:28; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3). God’s providence extends to the natural world (Ps. 104:14; Ps. 135:5-7; Acts 14:17), the brute creation (Ps. 104:21-29; Matt. 6:26; Matt. 10:29), and the affairs of men (1 Chr. 16:31; Ps. 47:7; Prov. 21:1; Job 12:23; Dan. 2:21; Dan. 4:25), and of individuals (1 Sam. 2:6; Ps. 18:30; Luke 1:53; James 4:13-15). It extends also to the free actions of men (Ex. 12:36; 1 Sam. 24:9-15; Ps. 33:14-15; Prov. 16:1; Prov. 19:21; Prov. 20:24; Prov. 21:1), and things sinful (2 Sam. 16:10; 2 Sam. 24:1; Rom. 11:32; Acts 4:27, 28), as well as to their good actions (Phil. 2:13; Phil. 4:13; 2 Cor. 12:9-10; Eph. 2:10; Gal. 5:22-25). As regards sinful actions of men, they are represented as occurring by God’s permission (Gen. 45:5; Gen. 50:20. Comp. 1 Sam. 6:6; Ex. 7:13; Ex. 14:17; Acts 2:3; Acts 3:18; Acts 4:27-28), and as controlled (Ps. 76:10) and overruled for good (Gen. 50:20; Acts 3:13). God does not cause or approve of sin, but only limits, restrains, overrules it for good. The mode of God’s providential government is altogether unexplained. We only know that it is a fact that God does govern all his creatures and all their actions; that this government is universal (Ps. 103:17-19), particular (Matt. 10:29-31), efficacious (Ps. 33:11; Job 23:13), embraces events apparently contingent (Prov. 16:9, 33; Prov. 19:21; Prov. 21:1), is consistent with his own perfection (2 Tim. 2:13), and to his own glory (Rom. 9:17; Rom. 11:36).

Webster
3. In theology, the care and superintendence which God exercises over his creatures. He that acknowledges a creation and denies a providence, involves himself in a palpable contradiction; for the same power which caused a thing to exist is necessary to continue its existence. Some persons admit a general providence, but deny a particular providence, not considering that a general providence consists of particulars. A belief in divine providence, is a source of great consolation to good men. By divine providence is often understood God himself.