Living in the Spirit
Living in the Spirit
July 21, 2022
Scripture Reading:
Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it. –Colossians 2:6-15
When Jesus answered the question, ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ (Matthew 22:36-40) I think Jesus set the plumbline for determining what is right and what is wrong, what is just and what is unjust. If an action, a belief, or a way of being is not of love, it is not of God.
Paul wrestled with defining love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, by defining its characteristics, Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
We live in challenging times where ideas and philosophies, especially empty deceits and human traditions try to define our faith based on those elemental spirits of the universe. We must always assess such ideas against the test of God’s love and live our lives accordingly.
Prayer: Lord, guide us in doing our best to present ourselves to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth*. Amen.
*Derived from 2 Timothy 2:15
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.