Thank you, Jesus, for a new day to praise you, seek you, and find you. May our minds and souls be filled with the wisdom and understanding that comes from experience with you, that we might live a life just like yours, pleasing you in every way. ~Amen.
1:11-12 "...being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light."
This is where I believe it's important again to remember that this prayer is specific to the Colossians, who were deemed holy and faithful in their love for other believers in accordance with the gospel of truth. This is a promise for us, too, but we have to examine our ways of loving and make sure they line up with Jesus' ways of loving. I have spent many hours in these last few months taking a good long look at the way I love other people, and I've found that a lot of times what I think is love really has at its roots control, fear, and even downright selfish ambition. I have been asking Him to gently uncover my hidden motives and truly transform my human love into selfless, others-centered love without sacrificing my soul in the process. I know it can be done.
It is in those moments of true love that we experience strength, power, endurance, patience, and joy! When I truly love someone unconditionally, with the gift of His love, I am empowered. I walk away supercharged, and later I get wrecked when they thank me, because I know that it wasn't really me. I know in those moments that God has gifted me with exaltation and glory (James 4:10).
1:13 "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves."
This is a done deal. If we are oppressed, it's not because God is withholding a key from us. In the healing that I've experienced this past year, I've discovered at the root of much of my oppression, both physical and emotional, are lies that I've believed about God or about myself. It is my prayer for both of us that these lies will be uncovered, exposed, and the foundations of these lies will crumble under the weight of truth that God loves us passionately and has done everything to rescue us and deliver us from the oppression of darkness. I pray for light, revelation, understanding, and wisdom to flood us in the realms of our physical and emotional struggles, and that as we come to truly believe deep within our hearts that God is for us that the enemy will flee from us in defeat.
1:14 "...in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."
redemption in Greek = ransom in full, riddance, salvation; translated deliverance or redemption.
This reminds me of the story of the paraplegic who Jesus first told was forgiven for his sins. When the religious leaders scoffed and made remarks about this, Jesus commanded the man to get up and walk as evidence that Jesus has the power to forgive sins. It is the forgiveness of sins that heals us. Forgiveness is far more than just saying I'm sorry and receiving "I forgive you," in return. It is that Jesus wipes the stain away forever. It is that he unhinges the shame cycle that keeps us trapped in our sins. It is that when we begin to truly understand true forgiveness, we are able to get up and walk again. We are no longer paralyzed in the shame cycle, but free to begin to operate outside of our bad habits. We begin to find revelation and freedom from the things that have always plagued us.
1:15 "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation."
This speaks of two things to me. First, that God is exactly and has always been exactly like Jesus. If we wonder about God's motives in the Old Testament, then we must look at His actions in light of the character of Jesus and apply everything we know about Jesus to God even in those Old Testament moments.
Second, that Jesus is the firstborn means to me that we are all in this together. In other places in the Bible it says that Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers. We are all heirs. We are all in this together. If His mission becomes our mission, we will be like him!
Thank you, Father, that you have forgiven our sins, wiped them away from the record. Thank you that through the blood of your spotless son, we have also become spotless and now we labor with Christ in the effort to bring all of earth into unity with Your will and plans for it. ~Amen.
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