January 18, 2021 AND LET
Colossians 3:12-17 “And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalm and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”
Instructions to ‘let’ seems too simple and too naive; perhaps that is because it is human nature to work at whatever it is we want to get. In at least forty verses in the New Testament, we are told to ‘let.’ It is wonderful and liberating to discover that we can cease striving and simply let Christ have His way in us. When Christ is ruling in our hearts, His life and His ways become evident in us. To let does not imply that we should be disengaged or ‘happy go lucky’ in life; we are called to study His word and to grow in the Lord and to mature in the faith and to be engaged with other believers. We must learn the ways of the Lord in order to know what we can let rule in our hearts. God has worked in such a way and has made it possible for us to ‘put on’ His ways. To ‘put on’ implies that what we are putting on something that is not of our self, but something that is given by God; God offers it, but we must make the choice to put it on. To put on the ways of the Lord and to be a part of the body of Christ is the ultimate life-and it is ours to experience. (Note: being a part of the body is not always a ‘cake walk’. Issues and problems arise within the body, but God tells us how to deal with them in a way that bring unity and blessings to whole body.) There are a lot of good things we can put on, such as compassion, kindness, gentleness, humility, and peace, but the greatest thing to put on is love. The love we are to put on is not human love, but the love of God. When God’s love is operative in our hearts, we experience peace and we find ourselves blessing and encouraging others, and portraying the life of Christ. That’s what it is all about. God has made away and has called us to a life that is foreign to this world. We have been chosen of God and made His own, and He has equipped us and empowered us to live in a way that reflects His nature and in a way that pleases Him-and we are most blessed in the process. May we let the ways of Christ rule in us.
Ephesians 4:31-32 “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
Philippians 2:5 “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:”
Blessings,
Buddy
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