Colossians Part Three
By Johnny Angel
Colossians 1:[24] Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my
flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his
body, that is, the church, [25] of which I became a minister according
to the divine office which was given to me for you, to make the word of
God fully known, [26] the mystery hidden for ages and generations but
now made manifest to his saints. [27] To them God chose to make
known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this
mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. [28] Him we proclaim,
warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may
present every man mature in Christ. [29] For this I toil, striving with all
the energy which he mightily inspires within me (RSV).
Paul shares that we will sometimes have to suffer because of our faith
in Christ. We will run into obstacles when we are trying to do things for
Jesus. Before Jesus came, the gospel was a mystery to most people
because if they had literally known who Jesus was, they would not
have crucified Him so He could pay our sin debt. Now, God means for
everyone to know about salvation through Jesus. That is why God
calls each of us to share.
The best part is that Jesus lives inside of His believers. We learn this in
verse 27. We must be careful not to take Him where He doesn't want
to go. When we remember that He is always with us, we will usually
make better decisions. When we are saved, the Holy Spirit comes into
our hearts. It's sort of like our bodies are zipper bags. We unzip and
let the Holy Spirit in. But when we sin, the Holy Spirit can't stand to be
around the sin and it wants to get out. That's why we feel conviction
when we do wrong. The good news is that we can repent and make
things right.
Remember that Jesus lives inside of you if you believe. He is always
there to help you with whatever obstacles come along the way!