Seeds for 2/7/2023 - Colossians 2:2a
Scripture: “My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Observation: Doctrine matters. After all, right belief concerning God is essentially clarity on who we’re talking about. The Triune God is specific. Jesus Christ is specific. We’re not dealing with a generic god or a generic “power of prayer,” but rather the God who revealed Himself to “Abraham, Issac, and Jacob” in the Old Testament and in the “word made flesh,” Jesus the Messiah, in the New Testament.
Getting our doctrine right, however, is not enough to “have the full riches of complete understanding.” It’s the floor, not the ceiling of our experience with God. Having “the full riches of complete understanding” necessitates being “encouraged in heart and united in love.” The love of God has a name: Jesus Christ. And Christ has a Body, which is the Church, the community of believers who share the common bond of baptism, which includes the confession of putting our “whole trust in Christ.” The love that Christ has for His Church and for the world was demonstrated in His compassion for the least, last, and lost, in His investment of time and teaching with His disciples, and His sacrificial death for the whole world. Doctrine tells us who it is who loves us and who is worthy of our love—Jesus the Christ. But His love embodied, not theologized, in our fellowship is what shows us the “full riches.”
Application: Who has God given you the opportunity to “encourage in heart”? What practical matters present challenges to being “united in love”?
Prayer: Lord, give me a heart to encourage and seek unity wherever it may be found, that we may share the “full riches” of knowing 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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