2017-02-17
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Earlier in his life, Paul (then called Saul of Tarsus), was filled with pride while working for the Jewish ruling council called the Sanhedrin. His job then was to find Jewish Christians and to persecute them. But our Lord, Jesus, has within Him the power to take the most prideful of humans and teach them humility. We saw this begin on the road to Damascus at Paul’s conversion [AC 9: 1-6]. By the time Paul was writing to the Colossians, he was humbled to the extent that he realized all wisdom was coming from the Lord Jesus, and he was commissioned “to present to you the word of God in its fullness, the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” [COL 1: 26-27]. Paul’s attitude can plainly be seen to have been changed in (24), whereby he describes his joy at filling his flesh with suffering for the sake of His church. Paul’s pride is broken, and he is demonstrating utter humility before the Lord.
As a Messianic Jewish person, I keep returning to the description of this long-hidden but now disclosed mystery, which is Christ in us. This has come to mean more to me than anything else. I see it as a gift, a gift of faith I didn’t have as a traditionally Jewish person. This was faith that I had been taught to deny by the rabbi’s. The thought that Christ died on the cross and shed His blood for a man like Paul and a person like me completely blows my mind (in a happy way)! This is faith that completely changed Paul’s life and surely has my own. What does this mystery mean? It’s explained in RO 6: 4, “…We were buried with Christ in baptism and raised with Him to a new life, just as He was raised from the dead through the Father’s glory.” We are united with Christ in His resurrection.
But there is more, as that famous ad for the Ginsu knife says—a lot more! RO 6: 6 tells us “We know that our old self was crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we no longer be slaves to sin.” We are freed from sin! RO 6: 11 tells us, “We are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” This is how the mystery of God works. As a Jewish person, I think of the description, in EZK 37: 10, of how God brings dry bones to life and of that hugely important promise that God makes, in EZK 36: 26-27, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws.” So, Dear Ones, Christ is the key that unlocks God’s wisdom and makes it available to us. Yes, we can still sin, but the Holy Spirit dwelling in us lets us know we’ve done something not in keeping with God’s will. Then, we have the choice to stop sinning and to make things right with God. If we do this, He gives us inner peace. Having the joy and inner peace that only God can give us is the greatest gift from having faith in Christ (my Yeshua HaMechia-Hebrew for Jesus, the Messiah). All around us, if we are willing to look for it, is the fruits of Christ’s power to create physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Please carefully read COL 2: 11-12. Therein you will find a different way to look at the issue of circumcision—not physical circumcision, but circumcision not accomplished by human hands.
PRAYER: O heavenly Father, Your power to do good, to convert sinful human souls-- to dissolve hatred, anger, and other sinful enslavement to the physical desires of the body-- is beyond anything any human has. Our need for Your Son, Jesus Christ, is pervasive and permanent. We look around us and see the sin of terrorism, efforts to force anarchy, and violence all over the world. Humans erect barriers between groups and individuals. Christ works to break down these barriers and to bring an end to this sinfulness. And yet, there are people who ignore Him and eschew having faith in Who He is and what He can do for us. You and You alone can keep the promise made in DN 9: 24-27, that there will be an end to evil. Your Son did the work of creation, and He will indeed have His Kingdom. We must pledge to work toward building that Kingdom on earth, just as we will be joint-heirs with Him to it [RO 8: 17]. We have learned, from RO 8: 3-4, that “what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by our sinful nature, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man.” We can be alive in Christ and dead to sin only through the mystery of Christ in us. You are an awesome God, and we love, praise, and thank You for giving us the faith in Your Son that we have. We pledge to consider our lives in eternal terms, rather than only earthly ones. We pray You will use Your power, given to Him, to put an end to evil soon. These requests and pledges we make in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I have been commanded by the Holy Spirit to pick up with the concepts of COL 2: 13-15, in which one finds a continuation of what it means to be “alive in Christ,” to have “Christ in us.” Mankind has a nasty habit of putting up barriers between groups and individuals. These are artificial and destructive. That’s the reason I find judging people by their gender, the color of their skin, their education, their material wealth etc. to be a serious problem that leads to further sinfulness. We are told, in MT 7: 1-2, not to judge people and to leave the judgments to the only one authorized to be the final Judge. That is Jesus Christ [DN 7: 12-14]. Even the clothing people choose to wear leads us to judge them. This trap can be shown in the case where an employer interviewed two candidates for a job in a plastics plant. Both were qualified engineers. One man came in dressed in a business suit and a tie; the other had long hair and a tattoo on his hand. He wore casual garb. The former had an MBA, but no accomplishments. The latter was a brilliant and eccentric person who had several patents to his name. You can guess who got the job. My prayer is that one’s ethics should be considered more important than his clothing or ethnicity. As Martin Luther King put it, “the content of his character” should matter more. For His wisdom opened to us, praise be to the Lord forever!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2016. All Rights Reserved
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