"For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me." (Colossians 1:29)
The Apostle Paul wasn't known for taking it easy. He planted churches across the Roman world, endured beatings, shipwrecks, imprisonments, and betrayals, traveled thousands of miles on foot and by sea, wrote letters that would shape Christian theology for millennia, and poured himself out in service to Christ and His church. By any measure, Paul worked hard — really hard.
But here's what made his labor different: it wasn't powered by his own strength.
What Paul Was Laboring Toward
To understand Colossians 1:29, you have to read the verse before it. Paul says: "Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ." (Colossians 1:28)
That's the goal. Not just to get people saved. Not just to plant churches and move on. To present every person mature in Christ — complete, fully formed, lacking nothing. It's the goal of the entire Christian life: full maturity in Christ, conformed to His image, lacking nothing.
And Paul says: for this I toil. For this I struggle. The goal is so significant, so demanding, so far beyond what any human effort could accomplish, that it requires something more than Paul's own energy to pursue it.
The Paradox of Colossians 1:29
Notice the paradox in the verse: Paul is toiling and struggling — his effort is real, vigorous, costly — but the energy fueling that work is God's, not his own.
The word translated "struggling" carries the sense of an athlete straining in competition — the kind of all-out effort that leaves nothing in reserve. Paul is not describing a passive, effortless experience of divine power. He is describing genuine, costly, exhausting labor.
And yet: the energy is God's. Powerfully working within him. The labor is Paul's. The power is God's. Both are true simultaneously, and neither cancels the other.
This is the Christian life in a nutshell. We labor, but not in our own strength. We strive, but not in our own power. Philippians 2:12–13 holds the same tension: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." Our effort and His power are not in competition. They work together. His working is the ground of ours.
The Gospel Is Why This Power Is Available
Here's the question that has to be answered: why does Paul have access to divine energy at all? What makes it possible for the power of God to work within a human being?
The answer is the gospel. Specifically, the resurrection.
Paul prays in Ephesians 1:19–20 that believers would know "the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead." The power available to the believer is resurrection power — the same power that broke the grip of death, that rolled back the stone, that raised the Son of God from the grave on the third day.
And Romans 8:11 makes the connection explicit: "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you."
The cross secured our forgiveness. The resurrection secured our power. Because Christ died, the penalty of sin is paid. Because Christ rose, the power of sin is broken — and the same Spirit who raised Him now lives in every believer, making available to us the very energy of God for the work He has called us to do.
This is not a metaphor. This is the actual mechanism by which Paul could toil and struggle and pour himself out across the Roman world without burning out on his own resources. He was drawing on a source that doesn't deplete.
Paul's Own Testimony: Weakness and Power
Paul doesn't just teach this principle — he lived it in ways that cost him everything.
In 2 Corinthians 12, he describes a "thorn in the flesh" — something painful and persistent that he begged God to remove. Three times he prayed. Three times the answer was no. And the reason God gave was not what Paul expected: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9)
The thorn wasn't a mistake. It wasn't evidence that God had forgotten Paul or was indifferent to his suffering. It was the means through which God's power was most clearly displayed. Because when Paul was strong in himself, the power at work in him could be mistaken for his own. But when Paul was weak — genuinely, undeniably weak — and the work still got done, the power was unmistakably God's.
Paul's response is one of the most counterintuitive statements in all of Scripture: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." (2 Corinthians 12:9) He learned to welcome the weakness, because the weakness was the condition under which God's power was most fully at work.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Dependence, not self-reliance. You start each day acknowledging your need for God's strength. You pray for His power to work in you. You recognize that apart from Christ, you can do nothing of eternal value — and you stop pretending otherwise. The person laboring in their own strength rarely prays, because they don't feel the need. The person laboring in His strength prays constantly, because they know the difference.
Effort, not passivity. God's power working in you doesn't eliminate your responsibility to work hard. Paul toiled and struggled — active, vigorous, costly words. Divine empowerment doesn't make us lazy. It makes our labor fruitful. You still show up. You still do the work. But you do it as someone who is drawing on a source that doesn't run out.
Endurance, not burnout. When you're running on your own strength, you eventually run out. The burnout that so many believers experience is often the burnout of someone who has been trying to do God's work in human strength — carrying the weight of outcomes they were never meant to carry, striving for results that only God can produce. When God's energy is at work in you, you can press on even when you're physically, emotionally, or spiritually depleted. His strength is made perfect in weakness.
Fruitfulness, not futility. Work done in human strength produces human results — temporary, limited, ultimately empty. Work done in God's power produces eternal fruit that lasts. The difference isn't always visible in the moment. But it becomes visible over time, in the lives that are changed, the faith that is strengthened, the maturity that is produced.
The Call to Labor
The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. (Romans 8:11) The same power that spoke the universe into existence, that broke the grip of death, that walked out of the tomb on the third day — that power is available to you. Not because you're special, but because God is gracious, and He has given His Spirit to those who belong to Christ.
Isaiah 40:29–31 describes what this looks like over time: He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength. Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not grow weary. They shall walk and not faint. That's not mild encouragement. That's a promise about the specific kind of endurance that comes from drawing on a source that doesn't deplete.
So labor hard. Struggle well. Pour yourself out in service to Christ and His kingdom. Pursue the maturity of the people God has placed in your care. Do the work that is in front of you with everything you have.
But do it all in the strength He supplies — trusting that His power is more than sufficient for whatever He's called you to do, and that the work He has begun in you and through you, He will bring to completion.
For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
Go Deeper
1. Paul's goal in Colossians 1:28–29 is to present every person mature in Christ — and he says that goal requires more than human energy to pursue. What are the specific things God has called you to that are beyond your own strength to accomplish? Are you laboring toward them in dependence on His power, or in your own effort?
2. The power available to the believer is resurrection power — the same power that raised Christ from the dead. How does understanding that the cross and resurrection are the source of your strength change the way you approach the work God has called you to? Does it feel like a resource you're actually drawing on, or a theological fact you've never fully applied?
3. God told Paul "my power is made perfect in weakness" — and Paul learned to welcome the weakness because it was the condition under which God's power was most clearly displayed. Where in your life are you most aware of your own weakness right now? What would it look like to stop fighting that weakness and start letting it be the place where God's power is most visible?
— Todd Wallace, 4HG
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