I got behind. In my daily bible reading I had a 4-day weekend and slept in and didn’t do my bible reading in the early morning. My suggested reading today was for Colossians 3 but I hadn’t read 1&2 yet so I started in one today and read through to 3.
In the automotive world the purpose of an automobile is to move a human and their cargo from point a to point b with more speed and less effort than would be required for the human to walk or run the distance. The BMW Isetta does this with no frills and no fancy do-dads. It is transportation in it’s simplest form.
The book of Colossians is like that. Compact but nothing missing. All the essentials for building faith and encouraging believers is here.
Chapter 1 tells us who Jesus is and what he has done. Chapter 2 tells us how our lives have been changed and transformed through Jesus death and resurrection and chapter 3 tells us how we should now live to reflect the changes that God has made in our heart, mind, soul and body.
To encourage followers of Jesus reading this, and to give a welcome and an invitation into following Jesus to the curious or onlookers who may be reading this I want to quote what Paul says about Jesus in chapter 1.
“We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it.
Colossians 1:11-23 – NLT
Followers of Jesus have have been bought and brought out of darkness into a kingdom filled with light because our savior is Jesus who is the light of the world and in him is no darkness or shadow or variation due to change.
Thank you Paul for writing this compact little letter to the believers in colossi. Thank you God for revealing yourself in the person of your son Jesus. Thank you Jesus for humbling yourself and coming to save us by dying for us. Thank you God for raising Jesus from the dead so he and all of us who believe in him can live together in your kingdom of light.
Peter’s Posts 