Category: Colossians

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

Paul gives an extended list of greetings here. Think about what the rest of the New Testament tells you about each one and consider what this list tells you that you can expect to meet in life.

SJA Notes

* Dear God, thank You for today and for Your word to us. Please teach us more of You.

“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”

Grace and salt.

These are the ingredients Paul says make up knowing how to answer each person.

Our speech is to be both full of grace _and_ seasoned with salt.

Both of these together.

They are seen best in Jesus. How He spoke, His language and conversations.

Let us wrestle through the process of putting both grace and salt into our words.

* Father God,

Thank You for Your Son Jesus, who shows us how to live.

Thank You for Your Holy Spirit, who walks with us each day.

Thank You dear Heavenly Father, for Your steadfast love and faithfulness.

Please help us in our words, help us to be full of Your grace, seasoned with the salt that comes from knowing Your word.

Amen.

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

It is a great tragedy and horror that such behaviour is encountered amongst the saints. The Apostle uses the very strong words put to death (3:5)! There are also the deeds of the tongue to be rid of. Can you identify the behaviours mentioned in their subtle forms within yourself? Cultivate humility before the Lord in such things. Here is where patience and long-suffering towards others find their source.

SJA Notes

* Dear God, please help us to hallow Your Name today.

“Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.”

The good news of Jesus is a truly wonderful message.

God’s word teaches us truths that level the playing field in a way that worldly ideologies cannot match.

We are all broken, dead in our sin, without any ability to better ourselves, to resolve the issue, to fix our big problem.

We have all fallen short of God’s glory. There is none, not one of us, that is good.

This levels the playing field!

There is nobody better than somebody else, there are no groups of people that stand superior or inferior to another group.

In Jesus there is to be no vying for power and status, pride and prestige.

Jesus is the crux and the pivot – Look!

It is the character of Jesus that we are to put on, His peace that is to rule our hearts, His word that should dwell richly in us.

His Name that we should bear well in all that we do.

* Gracious Father,

Thank You for Your word that teaches us these truths.

Please help us to live out our lives with a holy and reverent fear of You in our hearts.

For Your Name’s sake,

Amen.

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

Colossians 2:9 is a clear statement of the divinity of Christ. Buried with Him in baptism is a picture of being dead to sin (2:13) and not a picture of the mode of baptism! How does the warning against asceticism (2:20-23) apply to you within our culture? Or do we face the opposite temptation – materialism?

SJA Notes

* Holy God, You are the maker of all things – Please show us Your glory as we come to Your word.

“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established int he faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

There is much deep and solid wisdom in this passage, in these verses.

Jesus is our root and pattern, the head of us the church and in whom the fullness of deity dwells bodily.

Through Jesus we are raised with Him through faith.

Because of Jesus the record of debt that stood against us is cancelled, its legal demands gone.

If another word comes along the tempts us away from Jesus, let us turn back to Him – the Head, from whom the whole body grows, a growth from God.

Let us walk in Jesus today, the root of Jesse, the true vine, through whom we are grafted into eternal life.

Let us set our minds on things that are above, not things here on earth.

* Father God,

Thank You that our life is hidden with Christ in You.

Thank You that we Your people, through faith, have been raised with Christ.

Thank You Lord!

Amen.