Feeding on Colossians . . .

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Right now, I think I will simply read and feed on Colossians, and share a few things. And anyone else please share, too.

It seems our attention can be taken to so much political stuff and maybe what only certain verses in the Bible say about some specific problem getting our attention. So, it can be good to feed on everything an epistle is talking about, with attention to so many different good things.

In verse 8 > "your love in the Spirit" > there is love which is in the Holy Spirit . . . not human love, better than human. And this is what the apostles are noticing about the Colossians.

I think of 1 Peter 3:4 >

"rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." (1 Peter 3:4)

In the Holy Spirit's love, we have "the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." So, this is what God notices and desires.

So, even while there is evil all around us, and we do need to care about people in their trouble, our attention needs to stay with God and the good of sharing with Him in His love, and being pleasing to Him in His love's gentle and quiet beauty.

 

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In verse 10 > "that you might walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him".

So, we do need to be pleasing to our Father. This needs our attention. And how we are in His love has something to do with this. God's love makes us gentle and quiet and sweetly pleasing to Him . . . like Jesus . . . more and more as we grow in this.

So, pleasing God is not only about arguing verses to say we are pleasing to God, and it is not only about doing certain gestures or picking the right words to say in prayer. But how we are becoming like Jesus is what has God's attention, and this is our basic result of Christian ministering . . . not only or mainly trying to reform this world and solve problems and get things only or mainly for our own selves, but >

"strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy;" (Colossians 1:11)

This is how Jesus is > strong and glorious and patient and longsuffering with His joy. And in us Jesus shares this with us.

So, this is basic, what I can expect to come with trusting Jesus and His ministry.

 

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"Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily." (in Colossians 1:27-29)

So, if I want to minister for people to be perfect in Jesus, I can do this by submitting to how God works in me to have me do this.

 

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"being knit together in love" > in Colossians 2:2.

So, in Jesus we are knit together with each other, in God's own love. So, no one is all by oneself as a real minister. But we all share together and minister as family

 

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"For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ." (Colossians 2:5)

There are people I do not see during this pandemic, but they have been good examples for me and have shown me love. And this continues in me, though I am not with them "in the flesh". God continues the good which He has ministered to me through them. And He gives increase of this good, as we grow.

 

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"false humility"

"not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God." (in Colossians 2:18-19)

I can have fake humility . . . of trying to get myself to be submissive to God in His peace . . . in self-produced "submission". And I am not by myself, if I am submitting to God in His peace > we are all together with each other in "all the body" . . . "knit together".

 

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"Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged." (Colossians 3:21)

If someone is wrong, do not only criticize the person, but encourage people about what is good and possible with God.