Hold Fast to Christ

Salem Bible Study
Teachings on Community


Colossians 2:11-19 (The Message)

 ^11-15Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
 ^16-17So don't put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.
 ^18-19Don't tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They're a lot of hot air, that's all they are. They're completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.

For Reflection


What if it were really true?  Each day we are born anew.  All sins forgiven.  The slate wiped clean.  What a gift!  Believe the good news.  To what extent do you live your life as though each day were a new day?  How would you live differently if you truly believed that?

Pray that you live each day as a new day, devoted to that which really matters and giving short shift to those things which in comparison to Gods calling for you are insignificant.