Daily Reflections from our Re:Verse Scripture
Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:24-29 (day one)
Join us as Senior Pastor Chris Johnson, Associate Pastor Aaron Hufty and Associate Pastor Bryan Richardson walk us through Colossians 1:24-29 in our Fall Sermon Series: “Fullness of Christ” a study of Colossians.
Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:20-23 (day seven)
And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death... v.21-22a
When God offers reconciliation and peace it is an all-encompassing offer. Upon surrender to Jesus Christ we are not treated as POWs or enemy combatants or even foreigners now under a new rule, we are treated as family. It would be fairer for us to be considered traitors, but the grace of God guarantees that we are full heirs with Jesus Christ in a new kingdom.
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. (Romans 8:16-17)
Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:20-23 (day six)
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,…Colossians 1:21
The contrast is stunning and clear. Jesus is God of very God (v. 15-19), and we are hostiles with an appetite for evil deeds. Paul seems to have three objectives for this contrast. Portray the deep chasm left in the wake of our sin and rebellion, draw attention to our desperate need, and most significantly, illustrate that Jesus alone is capable of meeting that need and bridging the chasm.
Why go to anyone else? He is the image of the invisible God who takes away the sins of the world, yours included, not to mention He alone can get you where you want to go.
Paul would remind us to stick with Jesus.
Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:20-23 (day five) “For it was the Father’s good pleasure through Him to reconcile all things to Himself”. Last week’s Re:Verse text ended in mid sentence. Wanted to make sure we had the right motive for God’s work of reconciliation- God’s pleasure. The work of redemption is one-sided. God does all the work. He sacrifices. He makes the way. He invites. He calls. He takes the initiative. And in and through all His work and activity, He is “pleased”. Salvation is God’s JOYFUL work and activity. That’s a terrific invitation to a lost soul. The opportunity for salvation comes to us with joy and gladness. Remember, God has seen creation as it could and should be. All of it. And the work of reconciliation of all things brings Him great joy and pleasure because it also brings Him glory.
Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:20-23 (day four)
Alienated and hostile in mind…engaged in evil deeds…our lives were in confusion and rebellion against God. Our passage says that God initiated reconciliation and Jesus Christ enabled it through His obedience and death on the cross. Through Christ’s blood, the chaos and sin of our lives was reconciled to God. And to what end? Verse 22 says, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. When we walk, reconciled before God, we bring glory to Him. Our lives proclaim the Gospel along with all the creation.
As a believer, our lives should proclaim the Gospel just as God has proclaimed. Do our lives reveal God’s Gospel or do we present a strange gospel that will not lead anyone to Christ? It is easy to get slightly off the rails in our lives and then as we persevere in our confusion, we get further and further away from the true Gospel. Take stock of the focus of your life to make sure some repentance is not in order!
Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:20-23 (day three)
“To reconcile to himself all things…”
You’ve never seen the universe in proper working order. And, of course, the universe includes everything—solar systems, family systems, vascular systems. This is why Jesus, the most joyful human being who has ever lived, suffered profoundly during his time among us on this plane of existence. His all-encompassing suffering elicits from Paul no less than an all-encompassing statement of restoration. Some read into this statement a decree that all will be saved, thereby insulting the human race—and its Creator—by regarding us as drones without will or moral agency as bearers of God’s image. But for those who hear Paul’s words as a beautiful hymn of invitation to a life they’ve always wanted, a longing stirs deep within: Could this be the Savior?
Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:20-23 (day two) And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—vs. 21-22
When was the last time you really considered your life before Jesus? To think that you were not just a sinner, but in opposition to God is exactly where we were. Sometimes willfully, often by ignorance, but always alienated from God. To live a life contrary to the will of the Father is to walk as an enemy. It was in this condition that Jesus found us and offered grace. Scripture reminds us that a “good” man will lay down his life for a friend, but who would die for a race of people living in opposition to the truth? Never stop being amazed at what Jesus has done for us. Never stop telling that story to others.
Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:20-23 (day one)
Join us as Senior Pastor Chris Johnson, Associate Pastor Aaron Hufty and Associate Pastor Bryan Richardson walk us through Colossians 1:20-23 in our Fall Sermon Series: “Fullness of Christ” a study of Colossians.
Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:15-19 (day seven)
Colossian 1:15-20 is a perfect description of Jesus Christ (I know we only went to verse 19 this week, but that stops our study in the middle of a sentence):
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
Have you meditated on it day and night?
Have you memorized it?
Have you shared it with someone?
This name of Jesus Christ is incomparable in power. When we internalize that name we swell with grace, and when we share that name we unleash that power on a broken world.
Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:15-19 (day six)
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Colossians 1:19
“The radius of the observable universe is estimated to be about 46.5 billion light-years and its diameter about 28.5 gigaparsecs (93 billion light-years, 8.8×1023 kilometers or 5.5×1023 miles).”
I am not quite sure all that fullness means, but it surely encompasses the unimaginable. Consider for a moment the size of the observable universe. Even traveling at the speed of light for a 100 billion years you would never, ever reach the edges of the observable universe, ever, because it is always expanding. Not to mention all the matter between here and there, and the complexity of life on earth. Now, think on this. The mind and heart behind its creation dwells fully in Jesus. This puts a new perspective on “God with us.”
You want to know what else is impossible? You could never think too highly of Jesus. Ever. Our failure to fully comprehend God, much less a gigaparsec, is not a failure of God’s, but ours, our finiteness, compounded by our spiritual blindness.
The fight of faith is the daily battle to expand our understanding of the true nature of Jesus, to know the one whom he sent. (John 17:3) Paul was convinced this kind of personal knowledge would change everything. It did for him.