Not Just Another Fad...

                In my devotional reading for this morning, Paul spends time reminding the Colossian Church that the very essence of Christ is of God.  And in God’s intention to redeem all creation, God uses Christ’s body to purify and reconcile all to God.  He writes:

“Once you were alienated from God and you were enemies with him in your minds, which was shown by your evil actions.  But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through death, to present you before God as a people who are holy, faultless, and without blame.  But you need to remain well established and rooted in faith and not shift away from the hope given in the good news that you heard.  This message has been preached throughout all creation under heaven.  And I, Paul, became a servant of this good news” (Col. 1:23, CEB).

                Being well established and rooted in faith is the task of every Christian, regardless of time or place, generation or era.  And Paul says this with firm conviction – admitting even that he has made this task his primary goal in life.  To be well established means that we have become grounded on the foundation that our only salvation is in the blood of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice.  There is no other path we can follow that will achieve the same results. 

                But you know, as well as I, that there are many people who will follow after any other path, and sometimes every other path out there.  Their lives are empty, meaningless, and hopeless.  So they will turn to drugs, sex, money, power, greed, abuse – anything to ease that emptiness.  For the Colossian Church, the temptations were much more subtle.  Their desires were to follow any path that would lead to enlightenment – even the worship of angels.  They believed that the physical world -including Jesus, who was incarnate-was evil, and therefore not to be trusted.  It could not possibly be that anything of this earth would ever offer the gift of salvation.  Therefore the only hope was to look to the heavens for help – and the worship of angels drew their attention away from Jesus.  Paul wrote them back to remind them that their faith is not rooted in anything less than Jesus himself, and his atoning sacrifice on the cross.  To pursue anything else was hopeless.

                The vain pursuits of happiness through “stuff”, or pleasure will not lead to fulfillment in life.  These are just fads that are here today and gone tomorrow.  What counts is that which is eternal.  We therefore need to remember to be well established and rooted in faith.  Not blown about by every new thing that comes along.

                See you in church!

                Grace and peace,
               Brad