Seeds for 1/23/2023 - Colossians 1:19
Scripture: For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Observation: This is one of the great statements at the heart of “Incarnation theology.” Right up there with John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.” There are two phrases that I’m particularly drawn to today.
“For God was pleased” - Experiencing incarnation—God descending to pair full humanity with full divinity in Jesus, the Son of God and the man of Nazareth—is something we imagine to be sacrificial and burdensome. Paul is saying that either way—whether instead of or in spite of that—becoming human for our sake was a source of pleasure for God. We may expend great effort, even go out of our way, to do something kind for someone. If it’s done merely out of obligation we may resent it, but if out of love all the effort and sacrifice is a delight, a pleasure.
“all His fullness” - This is a declaration at the heart of the Christian faith. The claim about Jesus is that He was not only a spiritual or moral teacher, prophet, guru, or enlightened religious figure. Jesus was not partly divine, not did He make the most of a divine spark within us all. Christianity is emphatic about this: He was and is God. The early church asserted that Jesus had two natures joined in one person: fully human and fully divine. This doctrine of the Incarnation means that we don’t have to try and figure out what God is like. What we do is look to Jesus. Pray to Him. Read the Gospels. Ask the Spirit for help understanding them. Be delighted and challenged by Who you find there. That’s the Almighty God revealing Himself to us, to you.
Application: When have effort and sacrifice been a pleasure to offer? What has encountering Jesus in the Gospels helped you understand about God?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for taking delight in revealing your whole self to me in Jesus. May I delight in you this and every day. 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)
If you liked this post from Seeds of Faith, why not share it and/or subscribe?
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™