Lord Jesus, help me see everything You want me to see and hear everything You want me to hear and obey everything You want me to obey from Your Word today! Colossians 3 12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
I am personally inspired and convicted by this passage. It shows me that my identity as “God’s chosen people” is the fuel and power for me to live like I really want to live with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness and love. That is really who I want to be and these verses tell me that is really who I am. Jesus has made it possible for me to be “holy and dearly loved” by his grace in my life and now makes it possible for me to be clothed with the virtues of Christ.
As I think about last Sunday’s message about the Good Samaritan I am reminded how Jesus drew the lawyer’s attention to “being a neighbor” rather than arguing about “Who is my neighbor?”! Jesus directs us to grasp and press into our identity that we have in Him and then let our way of life flow from that. The list of virtues in our text is what “being a neighbor” looks like. The focus is not on the list of virtues we should try harder to accomplish. The focus is on the amazing fruit that flows from being “God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved”.
I am refreshed – I am hopeful. If I focus on my identity in Christ this fruit will come. I get to be God’s chosen today! I get to be holy and dearly loved! I get to live fully alive today – being a neighbor!
Equipped with this identity, I enter today hopeful, thankful and with wonderful anticipation – not because my circumstances are great but because my God is great! Let’s believe this together – we need each other!
delton
What grabbed you from this passage? What is God saying?