City Life Starter

Written by Efe Abbe

The Word

18 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. 19 For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, 20 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.

21 This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 22 Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

23 But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it.

Colossians 1:18-23 NLT

Reflection

In his letter to address wrong beliefs in the early church at Colossae, Paul explains the reality of what has happened to them, now that they have trusted Jesus: they are part of Jesus’ body.

Paul does this by first, describing the cosmic implications of Jesus’ death then shifts to the personal implications. The crucified body of Jesus has brought them peace with God (Colossians 1:18-20) and now as part of Jesus’ resurrected body, they are blameless in God’s eyes i.e. their spiritual identities have been changed (v. 21-22). Paul is trying to help them see that since God and His Son Jesus, who is God’s exact representation (Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3), are holy, it follows that Jesus’ body (the church) can be nothing but holy.

Paul then urges them to continue to hold to the truth they believed about Jesus when they first heard the Good News and to stand firm in this holiness. Note that he doesn’t ask them to work harder or be more religious in order to remain holy. He asks them to keep believing who Jesus is and the reality of who they are in Him – holy, blameless, and without fault.

Application

We all live out our lives according to what we believe about ourselves and Paul understood the necessity of believing rightly concerning God’s imparted holiness to us. His letter to correct the Colossians applies to us in the following ways:

1. The certainty of our holiness in Christ. If we have trusted Jesus, God’s Son, to save us from our sins and submitted to His authority, then His blood makes us holy, blameless, and without fault in the Father’s eyes.

2. Believing and receiving our holy identities. If I am a citizen of country X which gives me certain rights and privileges, I will only access those rights and privileges to the extent that I believe that they are mine. The same goes for our holy standing before God now that we belong to Jesus. We cannot earn holiness before God; we can only humbly receive it and belief that God has given us His holiness through Jesus.

When we choose to continue to believe and receive God’s gift of our holiness, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will increasingly live out that holiness in all parts of our lives.

Prayer

Dear Holy God and Father, thank You for making us holy in Jesus Your Son. Thank You that this is Your gracious gift to us and that because of Your gift You have made every way possible for us to live holy lives. Please help us to believe You and the truth of who You say we are in Your Son. Amen.