12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.
Gratitude is due to God, our Father in heaven. Heartfelt, genuine thankfulness should grow out of our daily experiences of God’s goodness. God’s children should never forget what God has done for them as their loving and most benevolent Father. God, who has given us His only begotten Son to be our Sin-bearer and Saviour, will also freely give us all things (Romans 8:32).
The apostle Paul has taken special care to emphasise the necessity of thanksgiving in all his epistles. In fact, in this epistle to the Colossians alone, the apostle has at four other times instructed believers to be grateful to God (1:3; 3:15-17; 4:2). In Colossians 3:17, he reminds us, “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.”
The ground of thanksgiving mentioned in our verse for today, is that God has made us fit for “the inheritance of the saints in light”. Though we are unfit in ourselves, God has made us fit to partake of the inheritance of His holy people. No one has ever made himself fit for spiritual blessings or heaven on his own merits. But by His grace manifested through Christ, we are made partakers of the inheritance of saints. So, the Christian inheritance is not won by our merit, but given by God’s goodness.
The word “inheritance” is reminiscent of the inheritance of the Promised Land by the Israelites under Joshua (Joshua 14:2). Admittedly, our use of “heir” and “inheritance” is rather limiting, being confined to succession upon death. In Scripture, however, it implies possession by allocation, and points to the fact that the people did not win their land on their own, but God had given it to them. Here, Paul applies that situation in Israel to the believers’ allotment. God gives believers a spiritual inheritance, namely the redemption that is in Christ with all its accompanying blessings, including the inheritance of heaven. The inheritance allotted to us is referred to as “the inheritance of the saints in light”. In other words, God has given us an inheritance appropriate to and promised to the saints. It refers to all the blessings reserved for Christians. The location of the inheritance is the kingdom of light. We are no more damned as children of darkness, but made fit to inherit the blessings of the saints in light!