May 27, 2021 KEEP SEEKING
Colossians 3:2, 5, 8,10,12,15 “Set your mind on things above, not on things that are on the earth.” “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.” “But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.” “and having put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him” “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, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.” “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.’
Christ has done all He needed to do in order for us to live according to His ways. This does not mean that we do need the working of the Holy Spirit in us enabling us to live in such a way; nor does it mean that we do not need to grow and mature in the faith. Sometimes, we can read passages such as the above and miss the obvious message. The message from the above scriptures, and many others throughout the New Testament, is that we have an important part to play in experiencing the life God has for us. I believe that this is one of those ‘forks in the road’ of our spiritual journey; if we take the wrong fork, we will miss a core truth of the gospel. In my conversations with many believers, it becomes evident that some do not believe that the life they are living is pleasing to the Lord; their view of themselves is that they are sinners saved by grace, but their old sin nature continues to lead them to sin. (True-we were sinners who were saved by grace and not by our works; but the power of sin has been broken; when we sin, we do so by choice. That’s the subject of many past blogs.) A proper view of the scriptures is that Christ has paid the full price for our redemption, has adopted us as sons and daughters, and has given us the Holy Spirit who enables us to live the Christian life as depicted in the scriptures. God gave us His written word in order that we might discover our new identity in Him; the commands and instructions we find in scripture actually point to who we are in Him-to our new nature that He has given us. God does not ‘zap’ us; He has done all He needs to do to set us free and to make us overcomers of sin; now, we must apply, embrace, put on, and adapt to His instructions. He did not leave us to try to figure out on our own how to live life as a believer; He gave us a clear path; He spells out in no uncertain terms how we are to live. He does not give us impossible commands to keep in order to frustrate us; His commands are do-able and they lead to life-AND we can keep them! The good news is that when we love Him and when we know our full and true identity in Him, keeping His words becomes natural-it’s our new nature at work. From today’s scriptures, we see words like ‘set,’ ‘consider,’ ‘put,’ and ‘let.’ These are action words; these words describe the part we play; as we do what these words tell us to do, we overcome our old nature, our flesh, and we experience life as He designed. The main point for us to get today is that He has enabled us to walk according to His word; His commands are life giving; and that we must make the choice to do what He says to do. WE CAN DO JUST THAT-try it.
Matthew 7:24, 26 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.”
Blessings, Buddy
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