He’s Always There / Charity St. Clair / Don Marsh
He’s the Father of compassion;
He’s a refuge for the oppressed.
He’s the fortress of salvation;
He’s a Father to the fatherless.
God of glory, God of grace;
God of hope, and love, and peace.
He’s the maker of all things,
And He’s always there.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Rebuke, convict, correct, instruct, encourage and train me in righteousness. In Jesus’ name I pray these things, amen. I read Col. 3:1-17:
Rules for Holy Living
1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
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 whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
My Understanding: Paul began the third chapter with the words “since then,” which means “because” or “in view of the fact.” So, another way of wording this could be, “In view of the fact that” (fill in the blank), then this should be true (the following), i.e. one should naturally follow the other. As I read through this chapter, I realized there were several sets of these “In view of the fact that… then this should be true,” so I’m going to examine those.
In view of the fact that
You are dead to your old life of sin – When we make the decision to say “Yes” to Jesus Christ, and to invite him into our lives to be our Savior and Lord, we agree with God that we are sinners in need of a Savior, we humble ourselves before God in confession and repentance, i.e. in turning from our sinful lifestyles and in turning toward Jesus Christ in faith and obedience, and we surrender ourselves to God for him to change us, to cleanse us from sin, and to make us new creatures in Christ Jesus. This is a spiritual transformation done by Jesus Christ and God’s Spirit within us in crucifying our old lives of sin, cleansing and forgiving us from sin, and then giving us new lives in Jesus Christ. We cannot do this by good works, nor can we initiate it ourselves. God the Father must first draw us to Jesus Christ, and then he gives us the faith to believe, if we are willing to cooperate with him, as well as he gives us the gift of his grace by setting us free, not only from the penalty of sin, but the control of and the bondage to sin. And, now we are in Christ Jesus.
You have been raised with Christ – When Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sin, he took upon himself the sin of the entire world - past, present and future, and he nailed our sin to the cross, then he was buried and our sin was buried with him in the grave, yet he rose triumphantly over death, hell, Satan and sin, leaving our sin behind. When we come to Jesus Christ we, thus, are crucified with Christ to our old sinful natures, we are buried with him in putting our sin to death and burying it in the grave, and we are raised with him to newness of life, leaving our sin behind, and then going in the opposite direction as we follow Jesus Christ in full faith and obedience. It does not mean we will never sin again, yet it is a conscious choice of the will to surrender all to Jesus, to leave our sin behind, and to walk with him in a brand new life that is committed to following him and to obeying him in all things. This is symbolized in physical baptism. In other words, our lives should radically be transformed by this regeneration of our lives so that it is like we were physically dead and someone brought us back to life literally and breathed the breath of life into us once again.
Christ is your life – “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will appear with him in glory” (v. 4). If something or someone is “my life,” then everything about my life should be about that someone or something, should it not? Life means “existence; being; energy; excitement; get-up-and-go”; etc. Life has to do with eating, breathing, growing, reproducing, etc. So, if Jesus Christ is my life, then I feed on him daily, and I grow in him and in the knowledge and understanding of his word and in his image, i.e. his likeness. He is the reason I exist, so I exist for him and to praise him, serve him, love him and obey him in all things. His nature and his character are essential elements within me and as lived out through me. He is my joy, my excitement for living, and the reason I get up in the mornings (and sometimes in the middle of the night). He is so much a part of me that I sense his presence, his words speaking to my heart, and his love and compassion like I breathe in and out each day in order to live and to survive. He is what makes me grow. He is what motivates me and what gives me purpose and longing to know him and to obey him more.
If he is our lives, if we have died to our old lives of sin, and if we have been raised with Christ to newness of life…
Then this should be true
We set our hearts and minds on things above – To set something, in this context, means to establish, fix, be firm on, be immovable, stationary, etc., i.e. not going back and forth and wavering from one thing to another. It means to be resolute – determined, definite, steadfast and persevering in setting our hearts and minds on things above. Our hearts are the center of our emotional lives, yet they are also the center of our character, our spirit, and the essence of who we are and what we believe and what we do. Our minds are where we think, make decisions, have ideas, store knowledge, gain understanding, etc. These are to be firmly established toward things that are of God, such as his character, his will for our lives, his love as lived out through us, etc. And, the way we set our minds and hearts on things above is by spending time at Jesus’ feet each and every day, hearing from him, listening to what he says, and then going forth and obeying what he tells us.
The other half of this says, “…not on earthly things.” “Earthly,” in this sense, is not talking about eating, working, exercising, clothing ourselves, finding a place to live, getting an education, having a family, etc., though if these things become our gods and they are what we live for and are what our lives are all about, then they would fall into the category of “earthly” things. Yet, in this context, Paul is speaking of sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, lies, etc. We are not to have our minds and hearts set on these things. I believe that one of the biggest culprits in keeping believers’ minds and hearts set on earthly things today is the media, i.e. TV, movies, the Internet, video games, music, etc. When we take these things into our minds via the media, in a way in which these sins are being glorified, laughed at, are entertaining us, etc., we run the risk of desensitizing ourselves to their influences in our lives. This can result in us adopting these sinful lifestyles into our hearts through us becoming emotionally involved in what we see and hear, and thus we would be guilty of taking pleasure in the sins of others, rather than weeping and mourning over the sins of the world. As well, these influences could lead us to adopt some of these sinful lifestyles into our own lives. This is not to exclude other influences, yet I do believe these are some of the most powerful at work today.
We put to death our earthly nature – Just because we have been born again of the Spirit of God does not mean we will never be tempted to sin nor does it mean we will never sin again. We will. We must die daily to our flesh and our fleshly and sinful appetites that wage war against us on a regular and consistent basis. We do this by putting off our old selves with its sinful practices and we put on our new selves, which are being made new in Christ Jesus. If we don’t put on something new in place of the old, then we haven’t really changed. We are just like a thief who is in-between jobs. So, if we have been lying, then we need to begin telling the truth. If we have been unfaithful, then we need to work at restoring trust by being completely faithful. We need to not go back to living like we did before we believed in Jesus Christ. Where there has been unforgiveness, we need to forgive. Where we have lacked compassion, we need to show compassion. Where we have not loved others as Jesus loves us, we need to love others with Jesus’ love flowing out to others from within Christ in us. If we have been prideful, we need to put on humility. If we have been unkind, we need to put on kindness. And, where we have been critical, we need to encourage. For every sin that we must put off, there is a righteous and godly character to put on in place of it. In other words, we need to become someone else.
We let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts – The opposite of peace is upheaval, turbulence and/or tumult within our hearts, and this comes through giving way to fear in our circumstances, which is the opposite of faith, so here we must put off worry and we must put on faith, and trust in Jesus Christ in all things. The Word of Christ should well up in our hearts like a fresh spring of water as we teach (instruct; impart knowledge; and/or explain God’s word in such a way that is practical, understandable and applicable to our daily lives) and admonish (warn; caution) one another with all wisdom. Christ’s Word should be alive and active within us as we sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in our hearts to God. And whatever we do, whether in word or deed, it should all be done in the name (character; and approval) of the Lord (master) Jesus, with thankfulness in our hearts and on our lips, as we give God the Father all our praise, honor, awe and obedience.
Lord Jesus, I pray you would reveal to me any sin areas in my life that need to be cleansed and where I need to put off the flesh and to put on your character. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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