Seeds for 02/20/2024 - Colossians 2:6-7, part 2 [repost]
I’m off this week from new posts on Seeds of Faith, so please enjoy this week reengaging with a wonderful passage that we studied last year, Colossians 2:6-7. I’ll be back next Monday, February 26, as we continue reading Matthew’s Gospel together.
Scripture: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
Observation: “just as… continue…”
That simple combo captures two important truths for us.
First, Paul reinforces his theme that receiving Christ is receiving Him as Lord of one’s life going forward. That’s the natural progression. Unlike an earthly Lord and King, we don’t only live our lives for Him (though we certainly do that). We live our lives in Him. His Lordship is not distant and remote, but close and personal. His Lordship is demanding, of course (“take up your cross and follow me”). But living in Him means living for Him while empowered by Him. He is the very source we draw upon for the life He requires. (I wonder if this is why Jesus said that His burden was easy and His yoke was light—the call to discipleship is a call to come and die, as Bonhoeffer poignantly taught us, yet living our lives in Him means we are ever drawing upon the strength He provides for living the life He prescribes.)
Second, I also read this as teaching that we are to live our lives in Him “just as” we received Him—“in the same manner” as we received Him. As in, “by grace through faith,” to borrow from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. In light of truly understanding God’s grace (Col. 1:6). In other words, just as we are reconciled to God by grace, so also we live the Christian life by grace. Our effort to live the Christian life is a participation with grace. It involves effort, but that effort is made possible by grace and empowered by grace. We’re not on our own. This may very well be another way of saying in Him, not only for Him.
Application: Where in your life do you need to rely on His grace in order to live in Him? Where do you struggle to do this?
Prayer: Lord, having received you by grace, keep me drinking deeply of your grace everyday, that I may live faithfully and well in you. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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