Tag Archives: Christ in you

CHRIST IN YOU

Christian Life, ,

Colossians 1:27-29 NIV
[27] “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. [28] He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. [29] To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.”

Paul’s letter to the Colossians, a church that came into being, not through Paul, but through the ministry of another believer, Epaphras, is an explanation of the supremacy of Jesus, above and beyond every other contender. He is not part of but active in creation, sustaining the universe by the mighty power of His Word. He is sovereign and supreme in the church. He is present and at work in every believer.

There is now no difference between Jew and Gentile. Through His reconciling work on the cross, Jesus has obliterated the past with its history of hostility between Jew and Gentile and created a new nation out of the two.

Galatians 3:27-29 NIV
[26] “So in Christ Jesus, all are children of God through faith,
for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. [28] There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. [29] If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Since God revealed His plan to Paul and called him to spearhead this mission, Paul gave himself to fulfilling his calling with every ounce of energy and strength God supplied.

His adversaries were many. Both natural Gentiles and Jews hated him for his faithful commitment to his task. He was buffeted and bruised from every side.

This part of his life, suffering and testing, was part of his calling. Every move brought another wave of hatred against him. Jail at times was almost his second home!

So bad had persecution become that Paul pleaded with the Lord to take it away, but God said no. He provided enough grace to overcome Paul’s misery and give him joy in suffering, remembering that his identity with his Master was to reason for his suffering.

So, Paul gave himself to his task with vigour, knowing that God was working in and through him to accomplish His great purpose.

What was Paul’s geatest mission? In seven (English) words, he states his purpose. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” He bent all his energies towards achieving this goal. All his travelling, all his preaching, all his teaching, all his writing, yes, even all his suffering wa focused in this one goal, that Jesus Christ would reside in and change the lives of everyone who believed in Him, through His Spirit.

In partnership with the Holy Spirit, going where He led, preaching and teaching what He revealed, and guiding believers towards obedience to the truth, Paul laboured faithfully with joy.

As his life drew to an end, Paul had the confidence to pass the baton on to young Timothy …

2 Timothy 4:1-2, 5-8 NIV
[1] “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: [2] Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction….
[5] But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”

…And to testify…

[6] “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. [7] I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. [8] Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

Paul could do no more than begin the work of presenting God’s message to the Gentiles. Others down the centuries would take the baton on. The tragedy is that many have taken the baton and turned into something that no longer resembles the original charge. Many leaders in the church have become “lord” in place of Jesus.

Only those who have faithfully passed on the message of God’s grace in Christ to all nations will share in the rewards of a commission faithfully discharged.

God has entrusted to the church a body of truth, which He instructed His people to guard, to live by, and to pass on to the next generation intact and unchanged. Any additions or subtractions will bring judgment in those who made them.

The church may not carry this responsibility with the same consequences Paul experienced, but the mission is the same. To every nation, we have the charge, to preach Jesus as Lord and to bring them to faith and obedience to the gospel so that Christ Himself will be formed in them.

FULLY MATURE

Bible Study, ,

FULLY MATURE

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 1:27-29).

Fully mature! Paul’s goal was to present everyone fully mature in Christ by teaching and admonishing them with the truth in the hopes that they would respond and become what he urged them to be..

Of course, he had no guarantee that they would respond to his teaching as fully as he hoped. All he could do was to provide the food; whether they ate it or not was up to them. He had two powerful weapons with which he contended – the Word of God and prayer – and he used them both with all the energy which the Lord provided.

The Scriptures present God’s Word as a weapon.

‘Is not my word like fire,’ declares the Lord, ‘and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?’ (Jer. 23: 29).

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (Heb.4: 12).

By prayer, Paul interacted with the Father through the Holy Spirit, discerning His mind and becoming one in spirit with the Father so that the Father’s will would be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Although he could not make anyone respond, he trusted his weapons to break down opposition and resistance and open up the channels of the heart for the light of God’s truth to penetrate and transform.

What was his goal? Fully mature in Christ! Those two words open up a world of meaning for those who aspire to maturity in Christ. It is the Father’s purpose to restore every believer to the image of His Son.

For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (Rom. 8: 29).

God’s goal is that every child of God become an exact replica of His Son. What does He mean by that? Jesus was the perfect and model Son. He was submissive and obedient to His Father, serving Him by doing what the Father wanted. He lived in union with and dependence upon the Father. He refused to do anything the Father did not tell Him to do and He did everything to protect the unity He had with the Father, even to laying down His life to fulfil the Father’s will.

Yet is was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, He will see His offspring, and prolong His days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand. (Isa. 53: 10).

Surprisingly enough, it seems, maturity is not about learning to be independent, as we train our children to be, but about growing in dependence upon Him as our source. Paul contended with the energy supplied by Christ through the Spirit. The secret is ‘Christ in you’. If we are ever to come anywhere near to maturity in this life, we must learn to become one with Jesus, living in union with Him in our everyday walk, doing His will in His way.

Working for Jesus is not what we are called to do. It is a mistake to think that our job is to be busy doing His work. We are called to live out His life wherever we are, because that is His work. It is Christ in us, being Himself through us that will accomplish His will. Working for Jesus does not mean doing what we think He wants us to do in our way. Working with Jesus means allowing His Spirit to recreate us in His image so that the world can see who He really is.

Paul called it a ‘mystery’? This doesn’t mean that it cannot be understood. It means that this truth was hidden until the moment when Jesus revealed it to His disciples to whom He gave the responsibility and authority to interpret His ‘yoke’. It was their duty to ‘bind’ it on all His followers and to free them from the ‘yoke of bondage’.

As I have explained many times, Jesus’s ‘yoke’ was His way of interpreting the ‘Torah’, God’s teaching in the books of Moses, and the way He lived it in His own life and taught it to His disciples.

It is only by following His way that we can every hope to become ‘fully mature’.

SCRIPTURE TAKEN FROM THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.