Encouraged

I sat down to write my perspective on God’ Sightings today and realized, “I’ve got nothing.”  That’s just as hard to say as it probably was to read.  It’s not that God hasn’t been at work over the past two weeks since I last posted in this way. It’s just that I’ve been seeing the struggles, the roadblocks, and the distractions from God much more than I’ve been seeing God.  I needed God’s Word.  So, I stopped and read the book of Colossians.

I chose Colossians because it is a lofty book.  Some of the strongest statements about Jesus being God are found in that book.  As I read it today, those statements got my spiritual juicies flowing again.  Something happened today as I read them though.  I started to realize why those statements were there:  Paul and the church at Colossae needed a pick-me-up, too.

Paul was writing from prison.  Teachers in Colossae were trying to put rules in place that appeared to be spiritual, but were really distracting people from true worship.  Arguments about abstaining from certain foods, circumcision, and the worship of angels all plagued the Colossians. They were seeing the struggles, the roadblocks, and the distractions.  When Paul wrote the letter, he wanted them to stop focusing on the distractions and focus, instead, on Christ.  He wanted them to move past the roadblocks and grow mature in Christ.  He wanted them to stop struggling with each other and start struggling for one another in prayer.  Paul wanted them to be the Church with Christ as the head.

My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:2-3 NIV)

Reading the book helped me.  Suddenly, I began seeing past everything that was trying to weigh me down.  Instead, I began seeing God again, as I should.

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I…have become a servant. (Colossians 1:13-23 NIV84)

Amen.