Colossians
Saturday, July 10, 2004
My Prayer Today
Heavenly Father, As I come to the end of another week, I thank You for Your guidance and care in my life. I praise You for all Your blessings and ask You to use me as a blessing in the lives of everyone around me starting with my family and extending to all with whom I will interact today. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit that I may share the Good News of Jesus boldly, and resist any temptation to live according to the empty philosophies or high-sounding nonsense that commons from human thinking and the evil powers of this world. Protect me from the wiles of the devil, and use me to help others in their pursuit of holiness in the name of Jesus. I ask You to let me live today and always as one who has been redeemed by Jesus, who has been buried with Him through baptism and raised to new life through Your mighty power. All this I pray in Jesus’ name and for the sake of His advancing kingdom! Amen.
God's Word For Me Today
Colossians 2:6-15
6And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to live in obedience to him. 7Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done.
8Don’t let anyone lead you astray with empty philosophy and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the evil powers of this world, and not from Christ. 9For in Christ the fullness of God lives in a human body, 10and you are complete through your union with Christ. He is the Lord over every ruler and authority in the universe.
11When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. It was a spiritual procedure—the cutting away of your sinful nature. 12For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to a new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
13You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all our sins. 14He canceled the record that contained the charges against us. He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ’s cross. 15In this way, God disarmed the evil rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross of Christ.
Reflecting on God’s Word
What is the most important thing that you learned form this week’s reading?
Thoughts...From Rules to Relationship...
As we come to the close of another week, it’s good to take the Scripture we’ve been studying verse by verse and look at it as a whole. Colossians 2:6-15 shows us that we don’t live by rules and regulations any longer, once Jesus becomes the Savior and Lord of our lives. Perhaps at one time we were slaves to the “empty philosophy and high-sounding nonsense that comes from human thinking and the powers of evil” which called us to live and think in a certain way. Perhaps that way even seemed to be a way of total “freedom.” In the end, though, such living is really an anchor that weighs us down and holds us in one place. Perhaps, we followed the religious customs of a certain faith—maybe even “Churchianity,” which is what my friend and mentor, Andy Weigand, used to call the practices of Christianity that were rigidly lived out without the benefit of a relationship with Jesus. Whatever has kept us bound—whether the literal law of Scripture, or some worldly law derived from our own faulty thinking or even demonic influence—as followers of Jesus we now move from rules to relationship. That is not to say that as Christians we will live without morals or standards. In fact, followers of Jesus are called to the highest of moral standards. The difference is we live out those standards in faith an obedience as a way of saying thank you to Jesus for His great salvation, for freeing us from sin and death, rather than as a means to gain His approval. When we woke up this morning Jesus loved us infinitely. Nothing we do today will make Jesus love us more or less. Certainly, our obedience pleases Him and brings with it His rewards, just as disobedience displeases and brings with it His punishment. That doesn’t invalidate the truth that Jesus loves us infinitely. Just as those of us who are parents establish boundaries for our children, because we love them, Jesus does the same. A child without limits is a child who is not loved. Jesus’ love brings with it expectations for our growth, for our becoming more like Him. No set of rules can ever make us like Jesus. That requires the Holy Spirit and a willingness to obey whatever Jesus asks us to do. As we go about this day, take great joy in knowing that Jesus loves us and has shown us how great that love is by dying for us. All He asks in return is that we love Him back and share that love with others. Christianity is a simple relationship between God and people, whereby the people love God back and share their love with others. When that happens the result is an explosion of the faith, because everyone wants to know God and experience His great love!