Prayer – Lord, please give me wisdom to see You working
in my life and to tell others about my relationship with You. You are an awesome God—and You are my Lord,
Savior, and my God.
So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and
teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them
to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ. Colossians 1:28
(Underlined for emphasis.)
Meditate. Can you teach “Relationship”?
Read the whole chapter of Colossians 1. No matter where you
are studying in the Bible, it is good to remember not to take verses out of
context. We need to see and understand the big picture—and the only way to do
that is to know the whole Bible. That is a little much to do in one sitting—but
you can easily read a whole chapter and see where the verse or passage that you
are trying to understand fits in. Here in this portion, where I was focusing on
the relationship to Christ, Paul was encouraging the church at Colosse giving
hope to the Gentiles that this secret that had been kept for centuries was that
Jesus Christ was for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. The same goes for us—a couple
of thousand years later. Jesus is for us—He loves us and He died for us. That is
love. Paul also revealed in this first chapter of Colossians that Jesus Christ
is the visible form of God. This is really a dramatic portion of the whole Bible
laying out a deep theological truth. Jesus is God.
Christ is the
visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and
is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the
heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we
can't see--such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen
world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before
anything else, and he holds all creation together. Christ is also the head of
the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise
from the dead. So he is first in everything. For God in all his fullness was
pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to
himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of
Christ's blood on the cross. Colossians 1:15-20
So—the world is reconciled to God through the redeeming blood of Christ. That lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We think of lambs as sweet cuddly animals—but Jesus is more than that. He is the lamb that was given in the Passover sacrifice thus the cross provided a bridge between sinful man and the perfectly pure God Almighty.
Verse of Salvation ~ The message of the cross is foolish
to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is
the very power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18
© 2023 Text, photos, and illustrations by Mickey M. Hunacek. All
rights reserved.
All scripture quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) unless
otherwise noted.
New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale
House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Biblical search from Blue Letter Bible - http://v3.blueletterbible.org/search.cfm.
Books by Mickey M.
Hunacek
Available as e-books or paperbacks at Amazon.com
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