In the Name of the Lord Jesus
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Colossians 3:12-17
12. Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, 13. forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
These instructions hold us to a pretty high standard, don’t they?! There is not a lot of room between the lines for prejudice, arrogance, greed, gossip, indifference, self-indulgence or anything else that is diametrically opposed to the teachings of Christ. Compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience are not the qualities we see elevated on commercials or television programs. The message from the world is that all those qualities make you a loser.
Because of Christ, our striving is to be more like him -- and to be him to and for the world. That requires a strength that is beyond human capability. For that reason, we must go to God, constantly, for assurance and encouragement. We are forgiven! What do we care what man says?! Oh, but we do. Because life can be hard when we live counter to what society views as “normal.” The older I get, though, the less I care for the world’s standards. The more I strive to be like Christ. The greater is my longing to be in heaven with my Lord. The waiting requires endurance too!
So many powers vying for our attention, our loyalty. It is so easy to get distracted and sidetracked. That’s why we must be intentional and deliberate our relationship with God. We must constantly go to him in prayer and in silence--so we can hear him above the din of life on earth. Jesus is our role model, our guide, our Savior. While we will never be like Him, we can certainly strive to Be Him for this fallen world.
I’ll be attending a women’s retreat this weekend with 50 other women. I am so excited to have that time away. As a member of the “design team” I won’t have much “down time” but I plan to model my weekend after that of the team members on my Emmaus Walk. They worked so hard, tending to our every need, and were up well before us, stayed up long after we went to bed so that our experience would be as meaningful as possible. To a person, they said that it was even better than their own walk, because they were able to “be Christ” to all of us.
I hope that this weekend will be the start of something big! But I turn that over to God! It will be wonderful to be in an environment surrounded by my Christian sisters, seeking a deeper relationship with our Savior and fortifying ourselves to go back and live in the world. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could do that often? Life is too, too full and busy for that! I hope we all find small ways to “squeeze” in time with God, so we can “squeeze out” the demands of this world, as a part of our new daily routine!
My prayer for you today is that you carve out even small blocks of time to be alone with God. And that he reveals to you the way you need to live to gain eternal life in heaven!
Mary
