Christ Lives in You

Meditations on Colossians

June 5, 2023

NOTE: We are back in the USA today and on our way home. I put these mediations in the cue before we left on May 22. As soon as we get settled at home, I will report on our visit to Sacre Coeur Basilica.

Christ Lives in You 

And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.

Colossians 1:27b

Read: Colossians 1:24-29

In this passage, Paul presents the most astonishing truth of our life as a Christian. But before we read Paul’s statement, let us ponder again Paul’s prose about the supremacy of Christ:

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God; He is supreme over all creation; through him God created everything; 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; he is first in everything; For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ; through him God reconciled everything to himself by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. (Colossians 1:15-20).

Now hear Paul: “Christ lives in you” (Colossians 1:27). This statement helps us understand how Paul could consider it an honor to suffer for the sake of the Gospel. (Remember he is writing to the Colossians from his jail cell.) Paul accepted a seemly impossible mission from God. As Jew who became a follower of Jesus, and who formerly persecuted Jewish Christians, he was commissioned to take the message of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. If you could ask Paul how he was able to undertake such an impossible assignment from God, he would quickly respond, “(By) depending on Christ’s mighty power that works within me” (Colossians 1:29).

My Takeaway: Today is a good day to take the time to consider the assignments we have received from God. We may have received a specific assignment from God in addition to the assignments all followers of Christ have received, such as love our enemies, forgive as we have been forgiven, love our neighbors as we love ourselves, reconcile people to Christ and serve as his ambassador. Can any of these assignments be impossible for us when we know that Christ, the visible image of God, lives in us? Like Paul, we can depend on Christ’s mighty power working within us.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2023 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.