Colossians Part Eleven

By Johnny Angel

Colossians 3:[16] Let the words of Christ, in all their richness, live in your hearts and make you wise. Use his words to teach and counsel each other. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. [17] And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, all the while giving thanks through him to God the Father (NLT).


I've come up with a way for us all to make a lot of money! Everybody today is looking for answers to life's questions. They are all looking for a way to find fulfillment in something. So I present to you God in a Box. We'll take little boxes and put a piece of paper in each one of them with the word God written on it. Then everyone can have God with them. We'll make millions!

Okay, sounds pretty ridiculous doesn't it. What we need to realize is that each one of us is a box. God lives inside of each of us who are Christians. John 1:1 and John 1:14 explain that Jesus is the Word. He was God living inside of man. When He went away, He promised to send the comforter. It's sort of like being able to go away from our friends and send part of ourselves back to them so that we are always together. Jesus comes to be with us through the Holy Spirit. His rich words can dwell in our hearts and make us wise. Then we can use those words to help each other out.

Life is a Disney movie according the verse 16. We are supposed to go around singing cheerfully al the time. "It's a small world after all. . ." "And I just can't wait to be king. . ." I guess that means we will never get down and get depressed. But does this sound like reality to you?

Actually, what this means is that when you are redeemed by the blood of Jesus, you have a song in your heart. There is something inside of you that just wants to praise God. It's like we're all walking light bulbs. The love of Jesus Christ lights us up and powers us up so we can shine brightly to the dark world around us. We will be thankful for what He has done. We won't have a happy, happy, joy, joy attitude that gets on people's nerves but we will be the beacon of hope in a world filled with darkness from sin and confusion. Our thankful attitude will remind us of what Jesus has done for us.

We will still have our bad days. But our salvation is not dependent on feeling right. It is something that we can know because we can point back to the time when we asked Jesus to come into our hearts. And there will be times when we are with other Christians and we just start singing praises to God together. It can be when we are listening to Christian music, when we start singing praise songs while we're riding the chuch van somewhere, or when we get really bored at a restaurant waiting for them to bring the food out.

When we praise God, it won't be to annoy people but to show love and a thannkful attitude. This is something that I've really struggled with. On a lot of mornings, I am a morning person. I can get on people's nerves going on about what a wonderful, glorious morning it is. But God has showed me that it's much more Christ-like to just show a simple smile and say good morning gently rather than making a big production and torturing everybody. I feel that Paul is trying to express here that our joy will go on no matter what the circumstances are. We may feel like everything is falling apart, but deep down inside we will still know that God is in control!

When we do these things, we must do them to give glory to Jesus Christ. We are always representatives for him. The United Nations consists of representatives from each member nation. They represent the views and choices of their country. We are ambassadors for Jesus! We represent to the world what it is to be a Christian. If we really have the creator of the universe living inside of us, we will not be able to enjoy making a habit of sinning. We will still sin, but we will be more aware of it and not be able to enjoy it. It may bring pleasure for a short time, but we will eventually feel the need to repent if we are saved. A growing Christian will ask God to help him be more aware of sin and to be able to find ways to prevent that sin from happening.

N Prayer, Johnny <*}}}><