Colassians 2:6-10 Tina

Lord, Thank you for the fullness of you son Jesus. - Amen

2:6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to live in obedience to him.

I use to be afraid of the word obedience; it scared me and brought up images of my earthly father demanding it with a scream or a smack. For me it brings up images of the Old Testament Law, following rules. Obedience to God is different, it is submission. Instead of submission out of fear we submit because God is in control of everything in our lives and beyond. If we are to obey Jesus’ rules then we are to Love the Lord with all our hearts, minds and souls and love our neighbor as our selves. For me it is a lot easier to obey a loving Kingly Father than to obey the earthly one who was full of humanness.

2:7 Let your roots live in obedience to him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let you lives overflow with thanksgiving, for all he has done.

This is one of those underlined verses in my bible. A tree with roots down deep in the earth can not be easily blown over. With deep roots the plant receives its food and water easily and can flourish. When we plant out lives deep in Christ and trouble arises we are not easily shaken. When our roots are deep in Christ we continue to grow because we are fed by faith and the word of God. I love “let your lives overflow with thanksgiving” this is something that is hard to do when life’s a storm around you. I have made it a practice to have a thankful page in a notebook, I write down as many things I can to be thankful about. WE need to fix our eyes on the thankful book! Retrain our thoughts to be that of faith and trust and not keep an eye on the storms that are around us. Even when things are miserable in my life the thankful book is full because God takes wonderful care of his children.

2:8 Don’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.

Paul was telling them not to follow or be enslaved by the false teachers who were teaching to live by rules. Jesus came to set us free, so be free! I am afraid there is so much of this nonsense in our world today. It is scary to think about what the world thinks is good and honest and true. ‘Philosophy’ refers to human wisdom and thinking. But wisdom without Christ is false wisdom. People’s traditions may seem to be good and wise. But they often have power to control people. Traditions depend on human ideas and human wisdom. They do not depend on God’s wisdom. The ‘from the evil powers of this world’ refers to satan’s spirits. People believed that spirits ruled the world. So people worshipped them. Satan would love nothing better than to twist the word of God to sound right but not be true. (garden of eden tree of knowledge) That is why having our roots deep in Christ is so important so we can discern what truth is and what is not.

 You mentioned yesterday” We are in Jesus. He said this. That we are in Him. Our lives are hidden in Him. Our souls are hidden in Him. This means that our souls are hidden in the same place as the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Is it possible that we are the repositories of His wisdom and knowledge? That we are the vessels He has chosen to hide His wisdom and knowledge within? He has definitely chosen to reveal Himself through us, and He is wisdom! He is knowledge. He is everything that is ever worth experiencing, knowing, understanding. And He is in us. We have the wisdom and knowledge of the ages at our fingertips.” I think when we dig our roots down deep in Christ we can tap into the wisdom and knowledge and see the lies, false teaching, and philosophy of the world for what it is.

2:9 For in Christ the fullness of God lives in a human body,

Christ was not just the Son he was the Father in fullness for us to see. God sent himself! I think this is important to remember because some would say that he was just a Son, just a nice man who came and said nice things. No, he was God in his fullness who stepped down from his royal throne in heaven, to live a pure human life (NOT EASY!), be tempted, sacrifice himself brutally, scorned, whipped, crucified, died and raised again all for you and me. Amazing to me when you think about it, God could have done a different plan to save us, could have done anything he wanted after all he is God. He could’ve chose a different way to safe his people but it was only through his complete sacrifice, first stepping off his throne to be born in a manager, living his life as a human full of weakness and temptation, teaching a bunch of lost sheep who could not identify him for who he was! I wonder if he got frustrated by all of that. He submitted himself to mockery, trial, injury and crucifixion for us, to pay for our transgressions. I don’t know of any other god worshipped on earth that would go through any of that for their followers. In Christ lived the fullness of God, a sacrificial father who loves us enough to suffer for us, amazing.

2:10 and you are complete through your union with Christ. He is the Lord over every ruler and authority in the universe.

WE are complete because Christ has already done the ultimate for us. We are complete because we are now adopted into the family of Jesus, we are his sisters. The Christians at Colossae did not need to get anything from the false teachers. Christians already have all that they need. God himself fills them with himself.

Dear God, Thank you that we are indeed filled with you, completely filled by Jesus. Lord I ask for your wisdom and knowledge to overflow through our lives. Help us to use this wisdom and knowledge to do your work through our lives. Help us to Love more completely, sacrificially as you son Jesus did for us.

Lord I pray for Angela’s family, that you would meet each one of them right where they are today and fill them with your Son Jesus. I pray for their move, I pray for your provision, leadership and strength through this transition.

Amen