Bible Studies

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The Letters
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19) – “God Lives in Christ Fully”

Key Verses: (NCV)

• 6: “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so continue to live in Him.” – Remember our baptisms and the days we pronounced Christ as our savior. We are to live each day focused on Him as we did that first moment that we believed.
  
  
• 7: “Keep your roots deep in Him and have your lives built on Him. Be strong in the faith, just as you were taught, and always be thankful.” – A formula for success.
  
  
• 8: “Be sure that no one leads you away with false and empty teaching that is only human, which comes from the ruling spirits of this world, and not from Christ.” – It is easy to be led astray with passionate ideas that sound right and excite us. However, Paul says it is our job to insure that we stay focused on Christ, keeping Him as the focal point of everything we do.
  
  
• 9-10: “All of God lives in Christ fully (even when Christ was on earth), ¹⁰and you have a full and true life in Christ, who is ruler over all rulers and powers.” – All of God can be found in Christ and all of Christ lives within us. What else do we need?
  
  
• 12: “When you were baptized, you were buried with Christ, and you were raised up with Him through your faith in God’s power that was shown when He raised Christ from the dead.” – God has forgiven our sins and has made us alive with Christ.
  
  
• 14: “He canceled the debt, which listed all the rules we failed to follow. He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross.” – Being a Christian does not mean that there are a set of rules we must follow. Legalism is dead. The only path to salvation is our faith and once we begin following that path, rules, laws, guidelines, and traditions become moot.
  

Points to Contemplate:

• Do you remember your Baptism? Think beyond the ceremony – the sprinkling or dunking – and think of your baptism as the time when you first knew Christ. Think of the event when Christ first came alive in your heart. Is that moment a moment you cherish? Think of other times in your life when you felt especially close to Christ, when His Spirit filled your every pore. Can you relive those moments? Are you able to return to those feelings? Can you sink your roots deep into Him, pulling sustenance and guidance from Him as you live each day?
  
  
• Are you being led astray? The world is filled with ideas, concepts, prophets, and opinions. As you seek truth in your life, do you leave the teachings of Christ and accept any notion or viewpoint that comes your way? The Colossians were attempting to define Christ through the ways of the world, trying to make Him universally acceptable by the standards, practices, and precepts made by man. Do you see the danger of incorporating the world’s belief system into your definition of Christ? Paul says we are to focus only on Christ – all we will ever need is with Him.
  
  
• Are you trying to follow a set of rules? Do you think that being a Christian means there are do’s and don’ts to follow? Many of the unchurched in our society have that viewpoint of our churches. If the Gospel is simply: believe in Christ and you will be saved, how does this idea of legalism come about? Where do people develop the feeling that they have to follow a certain set of rules and guidelines in order to be a “good” Christian? Paul adamantly warns in this letter against the adherence to law and tradition as a prerequisite to salvation. Is this a barrier to Christ that we still need to be tearing down today? Instead of holding up the Ten Commandments as a beacon for all to follow should we be nailing them to the cross instead?
  

Promises of the Gospel:

Paul warns us of our human tendency to justify our beliefs through human practices and beliefs. He tells us this is backwards. Instead of making Christ fit into the world, we are to simply focus on Him and let the world come to Him. When we dig our roots deep into Christ we are connecting with all aspects of God. We do not need to go out into other religions or cults to find other pieces of Him. We do not need to justify our belief by being accepting of any concept or idea about God that comes along. And, most importantly, we do not need to earn God’s love by following a set of rules or traditions. Christ is all we need.

FUMC Devotionals

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