Colossians 1:21-23 “You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.” This episode talks about how important it is to remain in God's word and to stay in His presence. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Stay Focused on His Word
Colossians 1:21-23 “You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.”
This verse illustrates exactly what Jesus did for us on the cross. He sacrificed himself for us while we were still sinners. It’s one thing to put yourself on the line for someone who is innocent and did nothing wrong. However, that is not the case with us. We were a people who seemed to turn away from God every time things got difficult. We were thankful when something miraculous happened, like when God led the Israelites out of Egypt. When they were safely on the other side of the Red Sea, they were rejoicing and praising God. Then, it wasn’t long before they started complaining about something. God’s people were constantly turning away from Him and yet He still sent His son to save us. I love how this verse says, “But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence.”
Jesus definitely gave himself completely at the cross. There was nothing left for Him to give. Then it says He brought us over to God’s side. This wasn’t an easy thing to do. God is a just God. He has banished Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden. They broke the closeness we had with the Father and He wanted it back. He knew that required a sacrifice and so He gave his only son. Imagine how hard that must have been for God to watch His son go through all of that. I was just wondering if he ever questioned it? If He ever thought, “They are not worth this great of a sacrifice. They do not love me enough, or they do not deserve this?” I honestly don’t think He did. God loves us and he created us His likeness and image. I do think He shakes His head and is even disappointed with us often, but I don’t think He ever thought we weren’t worth saving, which is truly incredible to me.
The verse says He put our lives together, whole and holy in His presence. I love that, whole and holy. How many of us long to feel whole and holy? Holiness is something we should all be striving for. A sense of wholeness is something I think we all long for and yet we don’t always feel it. In this verse Paul is saying that Jesus dying on a cross makes us whole and holy when we are in His presence. I wonder if that means when we are feeling empty, or when we feel like something is missing, we are not in His presence? I wonder this because the very next line in the verse says, “You don’t walk away from a gift like that!” We have a choice in all of this. Yes, Jesus died for our sins, but that doesn’t mean we automatically get to go to heaven. We still get to choose if we want to spend eternity with God or not. God gave us free will because He knew that if we were made to love Him, if we had too, then that is not real love. Real love has to be freely given.
The next line in the verse tells us how we can do this. “You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted.” Although this states what we need to do pretty simply, it is not always easy. There is a difference between simple and easy. It is simple to know how to lose weight. If you eat less calories than you burn each day, you will lose weight. Does that mean it is easy, no. It can be hard to figure out how to eat less calories. This verse tells us to stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust. We all know that trust can be a very difficult to things to have. I think trust is easier for some than others and I am not sure why. I don’t know if it depends on our past. If we have generally been around trustworthy people then it might be easier for us to trust. However, if we have been surrounded by people who continually let us down, it might be harder to trust. I think St. Paul is helping us with this when he goes on to say, “constantly tuned into the Message, careful not be distracted or diverted.”
St. Paul is telling us if we want to stay grounded and steady to that bond of trust we need to be tuned into God’s word. Reading His word daily is a great way to stay tuned into the Message. It is a great way to increase your trust in the Lord. Reading the Word of the Lord will help increase your trust in the same way someone showing up for you again and again will increase your trust in them. The more you read the Word of the Lord, the more you learn about who He is and how He shows up for His people. There are so many amazing stories in the Bible. I feel I have learned so much in these last two years just from listening to Father Mike do the Bible in a Year podcast. I know I mention that podcast a lot and it is because it has truly been life changing. I have read the Bible before, and I have done Bible studies before. However, to have a small section read to me each day and then have it explained to me in a way that is easy to understand has been amazing. I feel as though I really know the characters in the Bible. I feel as though they are part of my family.
The last part of that is the part I have talked about a few times this week and one I really struggle with. I am not struggling with staying in His Word because of doing these episodes and because of listening to Father Mike. However the last part of that sentence says, “careful not to be distracted or diverted.” This is a tall order in today’s society. There are so many distractions in the world. You don’t have to go out looking for distractions, they come finding you these days. Even if you are good and don’t turn the tv on, your phone or your computer can be a distraction. Sometimes while I am trying to concentrate on prayer time or writing these episodes my phone will light up with a message. Sometimes I can ignore it and sometimes I stop to read the message. If I stop to read it, sometimes I can then get sucked down a rabbit hole. For instance, if the message asked a question then I get distracted answering that questions and maybe I need to look something up online and then I see a website and get distracted with that website and then I forget to answer the question for 20 minutes while I am on the website and then I forget I am in the middle of writing something.
It is easy to be distracted and if we want to be whole and holy it is our job to try to limit those distractions and to remain in His Word. One way to do this is to put your phone on silent during your prayer time or your work time. Another way is to change the notifications settings on our phone so we aren’t being interrupted every time someone texts us. Remaining in His Word can be different for each of us. Maybe you want to read the Bible in the morning when you get up, maybe you read it on you lunch break, or before you go to bed. It doesn’t matter when you read His Word, it just matters that you are reading His word. Even if you are just reading the one verse from this podcast and thinking about it throughout the day. God is not asking for a huge time commitment. He is just asking for us to keep His Word in the forefront of our minds. If we can do this then we will stay whole and holy because we will be filled with His Word and our focus will remain on Him because we are not distracted with things of this world. This seems simple and yet it is not easy. Even though it is not easy, we can do it. In case no one has told you this lately, YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS! Actually you can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens you. (Philippians 4:13)
Dear Heavenly Father I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord we love you and we ask you to help us to stay focused on you. Help us to limit our distractions and to study your world ever day. Help us to stay grounded and steady in the bond of trust. Some of us really struggle with trust Lord, help us change that. Help us to see that you are trustworthy and you won’t let us down. Help us to know that we can do all things with you. Lord, some of us are really struggling with distractions and we ask you to help us with this. Lord you are amazing. You are the Word of Life, and the Lamb of God. You are the just one and we are so grateful for all you do. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you on Monday. Have a blessed weekend!