May 16

Colossians 2:6 (NIV)
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him,

Colossians 2:10 (NIV)
10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness…

Colossians 2:13 (NIV)
…God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,

Colossians 2:20 (NIV)
20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules:

This is powerful isn’t it? Look at it and just soak it in. It is the Word of God revealing a mystery – in Christ! Everything is “in Christ”. We received and He lives in us and we have been brought to fullness and we are alive with Christ because we died with Christ. We not only died to our own flesh, but there is more!

There is a song that says, “I put on Christ and make no provision for the flesh…” That is right out of scripture and as true as could be, yet here Paul is talking about living life according to the “rules”. Of course in his time he primarily meant “the law”. I would like to argue that we Christians have plenty of “laws”, that have come from well meaning people and from “The Law” itself. We live in Christ and don’t need the rules or laws to make us live right! In fact, they are counterproductive and can never save us from our flesh or Christ wouldn’t have had to come and die and expect us to “die with Christ”. Verse 23 sums it up well; “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.”

It is Christ and Him alone that makes us to soar above every principality and even our flesh. In Him we can resist temptation and live as freemen. We live in fullness – In Christ!