Colossians
Saturday, July 17, 2004
My Prayer Today
Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for the gift of life! I praise You for all the blessings I experience at Your hands, from the beauty of Your creation to the goodness of brothers and sisters in Your Son, Jesus, to the greatest gift of all—the salvation Jesus died to purchase, You have provided every good and perfect gift! Fill me anew, right now with Your Holy Spirit that I may live a life of faith, obedience and gratitude. As I go about this day, show me opportunities to share the Good News of Jesus with others, and make me sensitive to the needs of those around me, that I may offer them life and hope through Jesus, in whose name I pray. Amen.
God's Word For Me Today
Colossians 2:16-23
16So don't let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new-moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. 17For these rules were only shadows of the real thing, Christ himself. 18Don't let anyone condemn you by insisting on self-denial. And don't let anyone say you must worship angels, even though they say they have had visions about this. These people claim to be so humble, but their sinful minds have made them proud. 19But they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For we are joined together in his body by his strong sinews, and we grow only as we get our nourishment and strength from God. 20You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the evil powers of this world. So why do you keep on following rules of the world, such as, 21"Don't handle, don't eat, don't touch." 22Such rules are mere human teaching about things that are gone as soon as we use them. 23These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, humility, and severe bodily discipline. But they have no effect when it comes to conquering a person's evil thoughts and desires.
Reflecting on God’s Word
What would you most like to see become part of your life from today’s Scripture?
Thoughts...Dead or Alive?...
Now that we’ve invested a week with Colossians 2:16-23, let me ask the question I asked last Sunday morning in worship, “Are you dead or alive?” Are you dead to sin through participating in Jesus’ death on the Christ or are you still dead in your sins? If you don’t know the answer to that question right now, remember that the only thing necessary for us to move from being dead IN our sins to being dead TO our sins is to receive the gift of salvation that Jesus freely offers. Once Jesus becomes our Savior and Lord, we are dead TO our sins, and may start living the fully alive life that only He can provide. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times this week, most Christians, especially those here in America, who have been influenced by the teachings of John Calvin, have been taught that we really can’t be dead to sin in this life, that our death to sin is really just a “pass” to get us into heaven. We must work diligently to overcome sin, but it will continue to get the best of us while we’re here on earth. I admit that I lived as if I believed that for many years, even though I would have told you that I believed in Jesus’ power to conquer sin in my life. There are still times when I live as if sin has the last word, rather than the new life of Jesus. It’s easy to live as if we are still dead in our sins, because Satan makes a concerted effort to delude us, and to keep us from experiencing the fullness of the victory that Jesus died on the cross to purchase. Some of us (and I am one of them) inherited a volatile disposition. Once Jesus takes over our lives, we can let Him take that anger away, or we can continue to work on it under our own power. Obviously, when we let Him take it away—it’s gone. But sometimes we’d rather keep on working at it in our own power, so we struggle, and the new life we’re guaranteed as followers of Jesus doesn’t get lived out in all its fullness.
As we move on from Colossians 2:16-23, let’s remember the basic point it teaches—victory over sin and death comes ONLY from Jesus. Nothing we do will impress God, and thankfully, nothing we do will condemn us, so long as we have a living relationship with Jesus! The really Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that He has already DONE everything that needs to be done for you and me to live eternally with Him. All we have to do is receive the gift, and then use it, live it, grow in it each day. Our effort is necessary in the process, but our effort alone is never enough. That’s why “self-made” people always fall short when it comes to entering the Kingdom of God. Only those who have trusted Jesus and allowed Him to mold and shape our lives, to give us the victory, can live without condemnation regardless of what we go through in life.
My prayer for each of us as we move on to the next passage in Colossians, is that we will write the truth of Colossians 2:16-23 on the “hatbands of our hearts,” that we will know the joy of dying with Christ so that we may also live with Him. I pray that we will go about this day and every day drawing a little closer to Jesus, and needing to draw on the rules and regulations to keep us in line a little less. May we find the joy that only Jesus can give and then, may we share it with each other with those who don’t yet know Jesus, and who are still living according to the world’s or even His rules, but without the relationship. As we do, we can be sure that the joy will return to us abundantly and we will live without condemnation, all of our days!