Colossians 1

Devotion on Colossians 1 from 2009

Monday, December 14, 2009

Colossians 1

It is such a great blessing that there are those servants who have brought to us a true Word from the Lord by the will of God. That word is full of the grace and peace of God which has been won for us at great cost by Jesus Christ. God uses that word as a call to our souls, doing a spiritual work that enlivens the faith of the Lord’s people and their love for Him and for all those who belong to Him. 

This Word that comes by the will of God through His messengers excites our imagination concerning the life to come as we consider the hope that is laid up for us in the present heaven. The story of heaven is a part of the good news, the truth that we have heard and believed. This good news bears fruit wherever it is proclaimed and believed. For this work of fruitfulness to grow in the best way, the message of Christ that is preached must not only be spoken, it must be understood. Specifically, the power of the word is most clear as those who receive it understand that all the blessings that are for us have come to us as a gift of God. To see this more and more clearly is to understand the grace of God in truth.

The church that receives the message of grace, hearing of the death of Jesus Christ and the life that He has given to us at such great cost, would naturally desire to speak to others of this good news. The ears can work without the engagement of the soul. What is necessary for the fruitfulness of the gospel is a spiritual work. Without a powerful work of God upon our souls, we cannot have the kind of endurance and patience with joy that is appropriate for those who have been delivered out of the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. If we have heard about the inheritance that is ours through Jesus, if we know what it is to have our sins definitively forgiven, if we are aware that we were once enslaved in a world of evil but have now been purchased back, redeemed, by the blood of Lamb of God, it makes no sense for us to be lacking in enthusiasm for this great state of affairs. We should be filled with joy and have the message of our salvation on our lips regularly. 

When we look at our lives honestly we see that the love of many has grown cold. How can we recover the warmth of the kind of faith that grows? We need to meditate on the wonder of God, and particularly the glory of the one who has given Himself for our blessing, Jesus Christ. He is the icon of God, the visible manifestation of the invisible God, and is the source of all creation. There is nothing that was made that was not made through Him. This includes not only the wide array of beautiful and orderly organisms and elements in the natural world all around us on earth; we are told that the Son of God also created all things in heaven. All things were not only created through Him, but also all things were created for Him. He is the end of all things and He is before all things, in the same eternal realms as the Father and the Spirit. He is above all unseen authorities, including all angelic hosts, and all things hold together in Him.

Now that Jesus Christ has purchased a people through His blood, He has taken His place as the head of that body that the Scriptures call the church. This is especially good news for us, since in Him we have seen our resurrection destiny. He is the firstborn from the dead, and will have complete preeminence forever over everyone and everything in the world of glorious life.

Jesus Christ is obviously not some lesser god. All the fullness of God dwells in Him, and through the cross He has accomplished what is necessary to reunite heaven and earth that was severed through the sin of mankind. If we can grasp today the wonder of what is being accomplished in Jesus Christ, how can we not bow down before Him as Lord? How can we not thank the Son of God who has given us peace through the blood of His own cross?

Do you want to have an appropriate message that would be worth sharing with others? Think of this Jesus Christ. Think of His cross, the ugliness and beauty of it, the hate that it represents and the love that it displays, the apparent weakness of it and the overwhelming power of it. Think of where you would be without this Jesus and the cross, and what kind of hope you would have when your mortal life comes to an end. 

You were not close to God, but far away. You were holy, but evil. You were not full of some good purpose for living, but were fighting against God. But now, because of Jesus Christ, you are reconciled to God, you are counted as holy and blameless in Christ, and even your suffering has great meaning. Above all, this great divine Son of God is in you, and He Himself is your confident assurance of all the glory of heavenly life. Your best days are yet to come. You can safely rejoice in Christ, and you can rightly share the message of this good news with others. This is a struggle that is worthy of your heart and your life.