Colossians 1:21-25 Angela

Father, I thank you that I can run to you in times of discouragement and times of hope. I thank you that today was a day filled with hope and that even with discouraging news I am hopeful that it just means an open door awaits me elsewhere. (Tina, my brother was paying me $800 a month to do some work for him, but it takes me a lot less time than he anticipated, so he cut my pay to $400.) I thank you that I have been following your lead in preparing my resume and getting ready to launch my freelance writing/editing business. I thank you for your encouragement, your courage, and your strength to face each challenge as it comes. Today, I ask that you would boost us both up as we stretch for what is next. I ask specifically right now that Tina's pain would begin to ease, and that she would feel physical strength returning. I pray for a lightness and a joy to fill her in the next couple of days, incrementally as she begins to notice a change in her physical stamina. I thank you for this opportunity to be in your word regularly. Speak to our souls and our spirits. ~Amen.

1:21 "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior."

Wow! This struck me hard today. The truth is that I still sometimes believe I'm alienated from God. There has been a pervasive thought pattern in my mind that keeps me afraid to get on His bad side. This has been changing,  and I think this is the reason it is ringing so clearly to me right now. I am really coming out of the place where I believe that I can even get on God's bad side. There would have been a time that this particular verse would have made me tremble, really. I would have questioned my salvation because I still participate in "evil behavior," at least according to my own definition. My thought life and actions still seem to resemble the "bad" lists in the Bible more than the "good" ones. I know now, though, that I can't change my behavior on my own. I need Him to reveal it to me, and in confidence I need to boldly confess to Him and ask Him to help me get to the roots of it so I can pull them out with His help. I am so excited about the possibility that there is an end to my "evil" behavior in site. And the guilt and shame have truly been wiped out by His neverending, unfailing, eternal love for me, his daughter.

1:22-23a "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation, if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel."

He--God. My Father God has reconciled me. This is profound to me, too. For so many years I identified fully with Christ, but I was afraid of Father God. Despite the fact that I had read the Bible many times through and been through countless studies, I still believed that if it hadn't been for Jesus, God wouldn't have even wanted to save me. Now, I understand what this verse so clearly illuminates...God chose me, and He gave His Son for me. His Son, in human form, agreed with God about this arrangement, and it was the co-laboring of Jesus with God that brought about my redemption, and now I have the privilege of also stepping into agreement with God to further that redemption upon the earth in my circle of friends and family.

The last part is awesome! This last week I have been wrestling with some accusations a leader made against me a couple of weeks ago. I have been asking God to reveal to me whether what she said had any truth, and He keeps telling me over and over again that He does not accuse me. He does not bring my sin to light in a threatening, shaming way. He does not compare me to another person, and He does not motivate me by fear, guilt, or shame. I am walking in firm faith that His love for me is complete. This last part about our faith hinges upon the first part...that HE reconciled us to HIMSELF. He is the author and perfecter of our faith. He is the beginning and end of each one of us. It is all on Him. I have a part to play, but my faith is in His character, which never changes. It is by His character that I can now way every word spoken to or against me. This means that I can dismiss what she said in accusation, because this is not how God works in my heart. Phew!

1:23b "This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

Once again, Paul just summed up the gospel in a few verses. I love this! Passage after passage is reaffirming in every way possible that we are God's chosen children. And I like the part about the gospel being proclaimed to every creature under heaven! Angels, demons, animals, plants, humans. Every Creature!! I have been reading and learning about St. Francis of Assissi, and I have been longing to have an effect in the natural realm...to pray for animals and plants and see them flourish and be at peace with men on the earth...to see the dominion that God promised to mankind restored in all its fullness.

1:24 "Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church."

This is a mystery to me. Ahhh...reading it in the NLT makes a little more sense to me: "I am glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the church."

This is part of Paul's gifting as an apostle and martyr for Christ. I understand now that he is saying the Jesus still suffers on behalf of his church, and that as we come into unity with His heart and mind we also will ache and suffer for the ones who are deceived and lost in the world still, even some who profess His name are still in fear of God rather than in awe and intimacy with Him. It is my prayer that all will come to understand His deep and abiding love and how it washes away shame and guilt. That we can come to Him in our filthy rags day after day, and He helps us in our humility and weakness to overcome and conquer the things that have always overcome and conquered us.

1:25 (Continuing in NLT) "God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his entire message to you."

This is Paul's mission statement. Many times I read that this is everyone's mission statement, but I know we are not all going to do it just like Paul. I think we can have his heart and operate out of our different gift mixes and see the same type of results...lives changed, souls saved, diseases healed, demons cast out, and the creation responding to the release of the glory of God in His sons upon the earth.

Thank you Jesus, for your sacrifice and for the call on our lives to live as you lived and do the works you did and even greater works. Prepare our hearts, reveal the lies and root out the foundations of "evil" behavior in our lives. Remove the footholds that the enemy stands upon to retain ground in our lives. Remove every veil and bring restoration of lost vision, lost ambition, lost dreams, and lost momentum. I pray for restoration of the love of our first encounters with you and the hope that was once a fire igniting our hearts. I pray for a revelation of all that has gone on since then and how some of our experiences and the teachings we have taken into our hearts has turned us aside from the pure love of God and clarion call of the gospel in its simplest and clearest message. Thank you for all you have done! ~Amen.

Tina, we are in need of prayer for our move. We are weighing many different options, and it is very hard for us to decide. Each city seems to have a different mix of positives and negatives, and each day we learn a little more but it is a slow and steady progress. We need direction, clarity, and clear objectives in what we're looking for and what we can afford to do. Thank you so much for these daily visits! I love you.
~Angela