Worthy is the Lamb / Darlene Zschech / Hillsong United
Revelation 5:12b-13b
Worthy is the Lamb
Seated on the throne
Crown You now with many crowns
You reign victorious
High and lifted up
Jesus Son of God
The Darling of Heaven crucified
Worthy is the Lamb
Worthy is the Lamb
Full lyrics: http://www.lyricstime.com/hillsong-united-worthy-is-the-lamb-lyrics.html
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Colossians 2:6-15, 20-23:
Freedom from Human Regulations Through Life With Christ
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. 11 In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross…
20 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
My Understanding: In reading prayerfully through this chapter, I noted that this section of this chapter could be divided easily into two sections: 1) What Christ did for us, and 2) What our heart response should be to what he did for us.
What Christ did for us
The first and foremost essential truth here that needs to be understood first, in order to truly understand what Jesus Christ did for us, is in understanding who Jesus Christ is. Most people familiar with Jesus Christ, or even most believers in Jesus Christ, I think, understand or have heard that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God (the one and only true God). Yet, there are those who do not comprehend that Jesus is not just God’s Son, but he is also God. This is a difficult concept for human minds to comprehend, yet from the very beginning of Genesis, in the creation story, God used the term “us” in reference to himself as the creator, suggesting there was more than one of him.
The gospel of John also begins by letting us know that Jesus is God and that all things are created by him. God, thus, exists in three forms, i.e. three distinct persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and yet they are all God. So, that is why this passage in Colossians states that, in Christ, all the fullness of the Deity (God) lives in bodily form. God, in the person of Jesus Christ, took on human flesh and humbled himself, became a man, suffered like we suffer and was even tempted like we are tempted, yet without sin, and then he died on the cross for our sins so that we could go free. This is the ultimate in love, that our God would take on human flesh in order to feel what we feel and to suffer like we suffer and then to have his body die a horrible death, taking upon himself all our sin, so that we could go free.
Jesus Christ died for us while we were yet sinners; while we were still dead in our sins. In other words, he did not die for the righteous, but for sinners. Even though we did not live at the time of Jesus’ death on the cross, he still died for our sins. When he died on that cross, he took all our sins upon himself. I cannot imagine that. I know my own sins I have committed in my lifetime, and if I even took all my own sins upon myself all at once, that would be so unbearable. Imagine taking on the sins of the entire world, even of the people not yet born! And, he was God! He was the perfect sacrifice for our sins because he was utterly sinless. He was the perfect Lamb of God who could take away the sins of the whole world. Colossians 1:15-20 says this about Jesus:
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.When Jesus Christ died on that cross, our sins died with him, they were buried, and they were left in the grave when he rose again; when he triumphed over them, Satan, hell and death via his resurrection. So, that is why this passage in Colossians says that God made us alive in Christ while we were still dead in our sins, that he forgave us our sins, and that he cancelled the debt that stood against us. He did all this when he died on the cross, was buried and then rose again.
Because of what Jesus Christ did for us, if we put our faith and trust in him as our Lord and Savior, we receive him into our lives, and thus all the fullness of the Deity that is in Christ now dwells within us. We are his temple; his dwelling place. He lives within us in the person of the Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised to send in his place when he left the earth to return to heaven. Not only that, but when we receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we receive into our lives what he did for us on the cross in crucifying our sins, i.e. belief in Jesus means we have our old sin nature put off, i.e. we are crucified with Christ to our sin, we are buried with him in death and we are raised with him through our faith in the power of God to forgive our sins and to cancel that debt. This is done by Christ within us when we believe.
What our heart response should be
So, just as we received Christ Jesus as Lord, we should continue to live in him. A Lord is a master; ruler; one who is in charge. So, when we receive Jesus Christ, we receive him as the master and ruler of our lives and he is the one now in charge of our lives, because our old lives have been done away with and we have been raised to new life in Christ. Just like in any relationship, the newness of a relationship can wear off and we can forget what Jesus did for us and what that means for our lives, so we need to be reminded that being a believer in Jesus Christ means more than just receiving him, but it means that we continue to live in him. He lives in us, yet we are to live in him. That means that we make him our home, too, i.e. everything we do, think, say and are should reflect not only him in us but us as being complete in him. He is to be our everything. He is not to be given just a few minutes a day or an hour a week, but we are to give him all of us on the altar as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to him, not in conformity any longer to the pattern of this world, but transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we can prove, by our lives, what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will (See Rom. 12:1-2).
When we continue to live in him, it means we are to be rooted in him. A root is what anchors the plant and gives the plant water and nutrients; and is the fundamental basis or essence of something or the source from which something derives (Encarta). The only way he can be our root in this sense of supplying us with daily nutrients, anchoring us, and be our basis and main source for life is that we need to be spending time with him at his feet, learning from him and then obeying what he teaches us. We need to daily put off the flesh and its desires, we need to be renewed in the attitude of our minds, and we need to put on what is pleasing to God. If what we mainly take into our minds each day is junk, trash, and giving way to the flesh in our thoughts, attitudes and behaviors, then we are getting our “source” and our “nutrients” from a different source other than Christ. We need to make sure that we are taking into our minds and are living according to the teachings of God’s word if we are to continue to live in him and to walk in fellowship with him.
We also need to guard against false teaching and false teachers who would lead us away from pure devotion to Jesus Christ. The main form of false teaching the Colossians were dealing with were the legalizers who would base faith on human traditions and the principles of this world rather than on Christ. We still have that at work in the church today, as much of today’s church in America is following the teachings of man, man’s philosophies, man’s doctrines, and man’s marketing schemes and business plans for growing God’s church, etc. So many Christians are studying books written by men over and above scripture, and even many church leaders are following men’s teachings over and above scripture, especially if what man teaches serves their business purposes greater. So, that is why we need to be rooted in Christ and rooted in His Word, so that we recognize what is of God and what is not of God, so that we are not led astray, because man’s regulations may have an appearance of wisdom, but they lack any value in restraining sin. So, since we died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, we should not live according to them any longer.
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