Col 1:3 We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Col 1:4 For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people,

A farmer in a kingdom is happy when his own fields are green and if he is fed and his needs are taken care. But a ruler of the kingdom is happy when all the fields that belong to all the people are green, all the needs are met then there is peace for the whole nation. The ruler has a corporate interest in mind i.e. interest of the whole people in mind. Christ is our ruler and as per our calling  if we think like our Lord (phillipians 2:5) then we will also be seeking “the interest of all the people”.

Php 2:20 For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

In the same way Paul was like the Lord Jesus , he prayed and thanked for the body of Christ. As their faith grew so did his thanksgiving because he enjoyed the growth in the church. It did not matter in which person the growth took place. What matters is our Lord’s work is going on and his pleasure and plan are coming to fruit. We too must be mature and look beyond our own interests and look to God’s interests but it requires us to enlarge our hearts and minds and to be alive to God’s plans and purposes

When is a christian lonely?

A christian is lonely when they are living for their own desires, for their own purposes.

All those who feel a calling, a burden, a desire to do more for God must learn to die to their own plans, positions and surrender to God and allow him to re-design our inner and outer lives. The proof of maturity in this way is that we become many and hence fruitful and pleasing to God.

Paul’s Joy and thanksgiving to God reveal that he had a great love for God and God’s work . it is a great inspiration for us and we must be imitate such lives. Such a unselfish mind, Joy and such a thanksgiving is only achieved by dying to self otherwise we are alone by ourselves

John 12:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Then when the body grows i.e. other brothers and sisters grow we too can be filled with spontaneous Joy leading to thanksgiving to God.