Daily Reading February 10 2010 from Colossians

Day 31

Colossians 3:1-17 NIV
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 practices10 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. 7 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.

Raising the Standard!
Jesus raised the standard when He went to the grave and changed everything. Our standard of living immediately rose. The bar was set to a new level because He rose and raised all believers up with Him. Now He is seated at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us all. We are received a better promise according to Hebrews 11. Better than Abraham, better than Isaac, or Jacob, even better than King David or any other great bible character you can name. They had a promise but we have seen the fulfillment of that promise come to pass in Christ when He destroyed the old limitations and raised the standard to new heights. Paul says to "set your minds on things above, not on earthly things" because our standard is not measured in earthly things, our treasure is not of the earth, even our home is not here on this earth. Paul says to raise the standard and follow Christ by raising the standard in our minds, by overcoming the desires of our flesh, in our relationships, in our emotional lives, and in our way of living. Verse 12 "as God's chosen people, holy and dearly beloved, clothe yourselves in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." Paul goes into a discourse on relationships with others about forgiveness and kindness but the emphasis goes to LOVE! "Over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity" without love we cannot be kind, patient, forgiving, considerate, without love our relationships stall and our ministries fail. Without love we live in fear and without hope but with love we can have peace with God and compassion for others. God is love and His greatest gift to man is that love that consumes us when we accept Christ. Paul ends this section of scripture with a word of admonishment for the believer. Live in unity, teach and impart wisdom to one another, sings songs and hymns with gratitude to God. Finally he says "whatever you do, whether in word of deed, do it all in the name of the Lord, giving thanks to the Father through Him". Our standard to see where we are is in Christ. As we look into the Word of God we find a standard of holiness and love that we can attain to only in Christ Jesus. When we compare ourselves to one another we might find ourselves to be better than some but we are told to find the standard of the Word and commit to following the Word and being led of the Holy Spirit. This is February and we often focus on love, just imagine if we could simply raise the standard of love among believers. Imaging if one church became committed to loving one another and others like Christ demonstrated, what a revolution we would see from that one small segment of Christianity. We cannot force others to raise the standard but I wonder if a renewed dedication to our love walk would cause others to also raise the standard? Might be a worthwhile experiment.

Blessings,

Pastor Larry