3:1 - If you are a Christ follower you focus on things above...on heavenly things. This is so different from what most Christian, myself included, live out on a day to day basis. We spend so much time talking about politics or sports or movies (that are probably spiritually bankrupt anyway) or money, and then we wonder how we always run out of time for God. One of the marks of a true believer is a "big picture," God-centered focus.
3:5-10 - In case you were confused, Paul gives us all a little list of things that need to be left behind if you plan on living focused on what is above. Verse 7 jumps out at me, where he says, "in these things you once walked" (which I definitely have and sometimes do)...what challenges me about that phrase is the past tense. These are the things we leave behind as God's people. I want to be known as a man who "once" struggled with those things...because that implies that I no longer do. How beautiful would that be - how freeing!
3:11 - There is no place for bigotry, racism and stereotyped hatred...Jesus Christ has created all, is in all and through ALL! We when all ourselves to judge others on their culture or appearance...we pass judgement on Jesus Christ who made them.
3:14 - If anybody is reading this, how does love bind everything together? Why is love the ultimate relational glue?
3:18 - Wives, submit to your husbands as it fitting to the Lord. As is fitting to the Lord? This means wives aren't personal slaves to their husbands - that is not fitting to a daughter of the king. This means wives aren't lesser people than their husbands...that flies directly in the face of Colossians 3:11! It means that wives honor God and their husbands by offering respect and love...the same things that the husband should be sending back to the wife.
3:23 - Wherever you are....whatever you are doing...work hard because you aren't working for yourself or somebody else...you are working for the Lord. Every day is a gift. Every ability you have is a gift. These should be offered up to God daily as a sacrifice of love.
3 comments:
At the end, he addresses slaves.. after wives, husbands and children. This is a letter to a church, right? So, were there slaves involved in churches at that time?.. if he is writing to a church
Yes there were. Pretty cool, huh? Christianity is so much more progressive and world changing than anything that has ever existed...which makes sense, since God instituted it.
I just love how this passage is filled with instructions, shortly followed by "use God as a measuring tool." We are told to set our minds on things above. To change the way we think, and use God as a measuring tool. We are told about how wives and husbands should treat each other, according to God. Use God as a measuring tool. As I progress in my walk, I notice that it's not always about follwing the rules, but pursing righteousness and integrity in everything we do as we do it in love. Father, help me to be like this...
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