The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my mind and heart in Colossians 3:5,
"Put to death..."
Paul exhorts his readers to turn from what belongs to their "earthly nature", their sinful nature, a nature we all are born into this life with. He tells them to put those things to death. He then, in verse 12, tells us to clothe ourselves with those godly qualities that mark our new life in Christ, things like compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and the like.
Why should Paul exhort us in these things? Very simply and from what we all know to be true, we have choices to make. God created mankind with a will, with the ability to make choices. Confronted with the the same set of circumstances, some may chose this or some may chose that. With the volition the Lord has given us, he has provided the context in which we determine whether we will embrace Jesus Christ as our Lord in faith, whether we will follow him as our Lord in obedience, whether we choose to live our lives in a manner pleasing to him, whether we choose to participate in his agenda of building his kingdom in this life, and so forth.
Our ability to choose brings opportunities we often give no thought to, often taking them for granted. Choices reveal what is in our hearts and so provide us the ability to delight or disappoint our God and others. In another way, as an example, without the ability to choose, it is impossible, not just to express love, but have the ability to love at all. Without the ability to choose we are unable define ourselves by what we choose, what we define as character traits we would emulate, etc., how we might spend our lives the Lord has given us.
This ability to choose is so pervasive and understood within the pages of Scripture, it may be surprising to note how often the will our God has given us is called upon. Note these in just this third chapter of Colossians:
"Set your hearts on things above..."
"Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things..."
"Put to death..."
"But now you must rid..."
"Do not lie..."
"Clothe yourselves..."
"Bear with each other and forgive one another..."
"Put on love..."
"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts..."
"Be thankful..."
"Let the message of Christ dwell among you..."
"Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ..."
Wives do this, husbands do that, children to this, fathers do that, slaves do this, masters do that... we are given many opportunities to make our choices and so express who we are, what we are, what we make of our lives.
Our liberty, our freedom to make our own choices comes from God our Creator himself, and no one else. As such, we will be held accountable by none other than him for how we use our ability to choose, the exercise of our wills, our volition which he has given us, what it is we elect to do with our lives he has likewise given us.
God has given each of us a life and he has likewise given each of us our own will with the personal freedom to exercise it. The reality is, we always do exercise it, even when we "decide" not to do something... everything in life is a choice when we react or respond.
What will you choose today that might delight the heart of God?
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!
If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just respond and let me know.
No comments:
Post a Comment