Seeds for 3/1/2023 - Colossians 2:13a, part 3
Scripture: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
Observation: Today is an example of finding just one more thing to notice and reflect on in this verse. We’ve looked at the problem of being dead before God and the two factors that Paul points out here: our sinfulness and our outsider status in regards to the covenant.
We’ve pointed out that Christianity is not about making bad people good or good people better. It’s about making dead people alive. This is key.
Today, I want to make one more observation about this sentence. Paul says, “God made you alive with Christ” (emphasis mine). God certainly made us alive “in” Christ and “through” Christ. “In” and “through” indicate the source of our being made alive and the means by which we have been made alive.
But here Paul says “with” Christ. What significance might this word have?
“With” indicates togetherness. In and through Christ, we are allowed to join Christ in His aliveness. It isn’t simply delivery from death to life. It’s that our deliverer has gone ahead of us and not only do we make it to the other side, we get to join Him—the One to whom we owe our lives. God’s desire and goal is making a way for us to be reunited with Him. Jesus, who generously called His disciples friends, has made that way and rejoices to welcome us home personally in the proper time.
Application: How can you live out being made alive “with” Christ today? What significance does being made alive “with” Him, not only “in” and “through” Him have to you?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for making me alive in you, so that I may enjoy life with you. Help me take hold of that promise today. 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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