Can I pray for you in any way?
Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of His body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me 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 Lord’s people. 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.
He is the One we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.
Colossians 1:24-29
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
The Advent season, the season that runs up to Christmas day, is all about Jesus at its core. For it is a time of spiritual preparation and excited anticipation for all Christian believers, a time of personal readiness to celebrate the blessed birth of the holy Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29).
In other words, take away Christ and you don’t have Christmas anymore, at least the real reason for the season anyways.
But thankfully, God did love the world so much that He didn’t wish for any single person to perish but to have the opportunity for eternal life (John 3:16). And so He, through the Holy Spirit, impregnated a young virgin girl named Mary who would bear the Savior of the world, a son that they named Jesus as commanded (Luke 1:26-38). By divine arrangement, the soon expecting Mary and her faithful husband, Joseph, would travel to the little town of Bethlehem where Jesus would come into the world and change human history forever. He would become the Way and the Truth and the Life, the only One through which anyone could come to God the Father (John 14:6).
This truth became the heart of the Gospel, a truth that Jesus Himself taught during His three years of ministry and then commanded all disciples afterwards to carry on in what is known as His Great Commission:
“All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20
Note here that salvation was available to anyone, whether Jew or otherwise, the “otherwise” referred to as Gentiles in the scriptures. This was the “mystery” that had been “hidden for ages and generations” as Paul’s describes on our passage for today from his letter to the Colossian Christians, most of which were definitely under the Gentile classification. Through Jesus, the apostle shares that God had “chosen to make known” the “glorious riches” of the mystery which included Christ dwelling within all of them who had placed their trust in His name. In doing this, we read where they, like all Jesus followers, gained “the hope of glory”.
The spiritual life or death nature of this was why Paul dedicated his life to sharing the good news of Jesus wherever God sent him, even if it meant rejection, persecution, and suffering. Here’s how he summed up the difficulties faced while sharing the Gospel:
“Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.” 2 Corinthians 11:23-27
If the life of a Christian was supposed to be carried out in a comfort zone, in a bubble that never placed a person in the midst of trouble, then someone forgot to tell Paul. But we can see that obedience to carry out the call of Jesus and like Him, fulfill the will of the Father was more important to Paul than the sufferings He would endure, sufferings he knew his Savior had also endured all the way to Calvary’s cross and the crucifixion that took place there. Those sufferings were all for the good of those God wished to save through His Son and three days after that suffering, Jesus was resurrected from the grave so to ascend to Heaven and sit at the right hand of His Father with authority over all things in Heaven and on earth (Ephesians 1:22-23).
Going back to our text for today, this included the church that led Paul to actually “rejoice in the suffering” he went through for the cause of saving the lost. As the “servant” of the Christian church through “the commission” given to him to present “the Word of God in its fullness”, Paul committed his life to “proclaim” Jesus, “admonishing and teaching” all who were willing to listen “with all wisdom”, wisdom not of his own but provided by the Holy Spirit at work within him. The goal Paul strenuously worked toward using “all the energy” of Jesus, who worked “powerfully” within him, was to “present everyone fully mature in Christ” when the day of God’s judgment would arrive. On that day, they would gain their guaranteed promise of everlasting life through the hope they held onto in and through Jesus and that hope would result in an eternity in glory.
Friends, there could be no better way to end this first week of Advent messages that have been centered on hope with this reminder, the reminder that the hope we gain through believing in Jesus points us to the greatest glory ever, the glory of eternal life with God and His Son forever. The truth is that our best life is yet ahead and it all started in a manger in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago and a baby named Jesus.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment