1 For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for
you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the
flesh;
Have you ever been responsible for something or someone and
have to trust others for their care? I
know there are those who are better at organization and study and prayer than I
am but are they going to organize, study and pray harder for something near and
dear to my heart? Can you imagine
someone as zealous for souls and new converts as Paul having to trust another
to get the job done? He was in jail at
the time and would soon have a legal fight for his life and yet his passion and
his fear was for the lost souls of Colosse and Laodicea. He was unable to get a taste of their heart
nor they his and it tore at him. I
wouldn’t call Paul a micro-manager but he was certainly someone who liked to
keep his own hands busy with the work.
Christians need to understand that they are each a single
part of a great body. As it says in 1
Corinthians 3:6, “I have planted, Apollos watered, but it is God who gave the
increase.” This was a harsh lesson for
Paul; not because he was a glory hog but because he always wanted to be sure it
was done right. One thing is certain;
Paul never shrank away from trusting God whether he found it uncomfortable or
not.
2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit
together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding,
to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
This is what it means to be joined to the body of
Christ. Your hearts should be comforted
while at the same time being knit together in love for one another. Notice the wealth you are being promised? God promises to give you full assurance of
your understanding of who and what you are in Him and who and what He is as
well as the Father and trinity as a whole.
Scripture says, “If anyone lacks wisdom let him ask of God who will give
to all men liberally.” It has never been
God’s will for you to wander about in ignorant faith. God expects you to have regular epiphanies;
He wants you to have those, “Ah hah!” moments.
If you aren’t being comforted and encouraged in God then
either you or your fellowship is missing something. He sent His son to die for you. He’s not going to leave you without just
because you don’t understand something.
God’s intention is always for you to have your questions answered and
your heart filled with love.
3 In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge.
All the wisdom and treasure of the ages is invested in
Christ Jesus. Proverbs 25:2 says, “it is
the glory of God to conceal and hide a thing but the honor of kings to seek out
that very matter.” Revelation 1:6 and
5:10 says we are made kings and priests.
It is your honor to seek out those hidden things in God. There are so many things that are simply
hidden in the Bible. Just the names of
individuals in the genealogies and other place names mean something and yet
most concordances don’t bother to translate each name while translating the
scripture into another language.
When someone says, “I am going to Bethel to be with my
Lord,” the very name means ‘beth’ –
house. ‘el’ – God. Bethel means
house of God. Every name in the Bible
matters. Every phrase does too. The ancient rabbi’s used to say, “When
Messiah comes he will not only teach us the whole Torah but He will translate
even the spaces between the letters.”
When was the last time you did a Bible Study that took into account the
letter and word use of the original language.
Few do because God blinds their eyes.
Pray for God to open your eyes and reveal the truth to you. This gift is yours.
4 And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with
enticing words.
Why the warning? Why
would Paul warn against men beguiling you and giving you alternative but sweet
sounding words? He warns us because that
is just how Satan works. I can’t tell
you how many times I have rejoiced to have someone speak against a portion of
scripture I was trying to apply to my life because it meant that I was on the
right track. If you ever see the
Pharisees or others trying to kill one of the disciples or even Jesus, it is
because they or He just said something profound and you need to go back and
study it. Satan had the chief priests
and Pharisees so bound up in fables and genealogies that they thought good was
evil and evil good. They were completely
confused.
It wasn’t that they were always against God but they had
become just corrupt enough to call good evil and evil good. Their hearts desire was to see Israel as a
strong political force when God’s was to see it become a strong spiritual
force. They missed the call and missed
the boat.
5 For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you
in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your
faith in Christ.
If you’ve never served under a strong spiritual leader you
may not be aware how much such a covering can matter to you and your day to day
walk with God. The example such a person
provides along with the spiritual advice and authority they bring can change
your life completely. Paul was trying to
tell them something significant here. He
said that to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord, but here
was a similar but different idea. To be
absent in the flesh is to be present in the spirit. God honors these spiritual sons and daughters,
and Paul, walking in the spirit honors and loves and rejoices in them as
well. When one is in the spirit, it
isn’t an offering you rejoice in but in the heartfelt change of your
hearers. That is what brings joy
unspeakable and full of glory.
6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so
walk ye in him:
I hope you have received Jesus with love, joy, passion, enthusiasm,
faith and a powerful will to serve.
Sadly, many do not receive God so graciously because they were not
introduced to Him in that manner. The
next verse says how we are to serve the Lord but before we go there let me
admonish the preachers, teachers, prophets, evangelists and apostles to preach
the Word of God as God has given it. I
was blessed to receive God from someone who even after a hard message because
sin was in the house would say, “Now, let me get you a bandage,” then he would
proceed to love us and hug on us in his message and you went home knowing you sinned
but that in spite of that you were loved and cherished. The chastening made you feel bad but the hug
afterwards made you want to do better so you didn’t embarrass your pastor or
your God.
7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the
faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
When you know you are loved and cherished it is so much
easier to trust what someone says they will do.
So many have received faulty information about God’s love and mercy that
they keep asking the same question, “Am I really saved?” This can be caused by a childhood where you
were not loved much by your parents or perhaps you went through an abusive
relationship with someone. Our walk with
God depends on a relationship with Him more than merely following His
Word. We follow His word so the
relationship might be formed. When you
are told to follow his Word to avoid Hell or to keep from being punished, it
can make you miss the most important point of all, God loves you, wants to relate
to you in love, and is not an excessive disciplinarian.
Don’t get me wrong, God IS A DISCIPLINARIAN. He absolutely expects his sons and daughters
to grow into upstanding citizens of His heavenly kingdom. What some church leaders miss however is that
we learn line upon line and precept upon precept. My knowledge of the Lord is the sum of
thirty-five years of pressing in and getting chastened, loved and
appreciated. It has grown through baby
stages and toddler, teen and young adult.
I like to think I have finally become somewhat mature in my faith but it
has taken decades to get here.
8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and
vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and
not after Christ.
God wants a relationship rather than a dictatorship. He wants a family more than a house full of
servants. Our Lord is an organized head
of household who expects the dishes to be washed, beds made and house kept
clean by the kids; but as long as the chores are done He is a loving and
gracious father who dotes on His children and does many wonderful things for
them. He believes in community service
and will assign us any number of hours in the local or even international
community to spread His message of love and family.
His main concern is that since His message is so simple and
loving there are any number of people on the outside and even on the inside who
feel it can’t be true or want to change it to something that makes sense to
them. Jesus came so you might have life
and have it more abundantly. At the
higher levels this can appear quite difficult to those who have not yet
attained that stature. We read, “To live
is Christ and to die is gain,” and we might walk away scratching our heads and
asking, “How is that love?”
The missing ingredient there is maturity of life and
maturity of understanding. No parent
tells the two year old to clear the fine china off the table; not if he wants
to preserve the china anyway. Many of
the ‘difficult’ parts of my walk with God are second nature to me now but I
struggled and despaired over them thirty years ago. We in the body of Christ must learn to
portray an accurate image of Jesus and our Father to the world rather than the
twisted and warped one sold by Satan.
My spirit man is the most important part of who I am but it
is not the loudest. If I am to die in
Christ then I need to have a full understanding that we are only speaking of
death of will or death of dark desires.
Sin brings shame. Life in Christ
brings life and peace. You must
experience it to understand it and in the beginning it doesn’t make any
‘natural’ sense. You must develop your
spiritual sense first.
9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily.
The word here translated fullness is, pleroma which means, “That which fills.” Within Christ and so within the body of
Christ which is made up of individual Christians dwells all the fullness of the
Godhead bodily. How much power does God
have in His little finger? If it is
enough to shake a mountain and you are God’s little finger, shouldn’t you have
that level of power?
10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all
principality and power:
All your flaws, all your shortcomings, all your mistakes are
overcome through Christ in you. A
murderer is complete in Jesus if they have repented of their sin and
crime. If the whole world hates them and
they are saved then 1 John 4:4 says, “Greater is He that is in you than He that
is in the world.” You might yet be
locked in a prison of your own making but in Christ you are free. I recall a woman who killed several
people. She was sentenced to die for her
crimes. While awaiting her execution
(which might take decades in this country), she became a Christian and began to
serve God with her whole heart.
She appealed her conviction so she could do God’s work on
the outside and was denied. Everyone
agreed that her life had changed completely.
She asked forgiveness of the families she had injured and worked
tirelessly with prisoners. On the day
she was put to death she asked only that by dying she could offer some closure
and peace to the families she had devastated.
There was no fear in her when she closed her eyes and awoke before her
Savior.
If God can do this much in someone who had broken too many
of His commandments to count, how much more can He do in your life. If He is above all principality and power,
you are above all principality and power.
Jesus said upon rising to glory that greater things than these shall we
do because He goes to the Father. I
don’t know about you but I want to see these greater miracles come through my
ministering because I believe in my Lord.
One of the greatest witnesses in the history of mankind was the thief
who died the same day he got saved. His
life continued through the Gospels and has brought many criminal and lost soul
to salvation.
11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision
made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ:
I am reminded of a story of a little girl whose mother was
terribly scarred by burns. When she began
school the little girl was embarrassed by her mother and the other children
mocked her looks. One day the little
girl was frustrated about this and asked her mother why she was so scarred. What she really wanted to know is why
couldn’t she have a mother like the other kids.
Her mother explained that when she was a baby a fire broke out in their
apartment. Her mother ran through the
flames to rescue her child and received the terrible burns. From that day on the girl was never ashamed
of the marks her mother bore for her sake and was proud to be seen in public
with her.
Circumcision was a covenant that God had with the Jews. Most of the people around them were not
circumcised. There are all sorts of
spiritual reasons for this circumcision but most importantly it was a setting
apart of the Jews and was an outward sign of an inward event, marking them as
His special people. One obvious purpose
of circumcision was to ‘mark’ the one part of our physical bodies that can get
us into significant trouble and make us unfaithful. Romans 16:17 says to mark those who cause
division. In this case we are marked
because we bring unity through the circumcision of Christ. Consider how important this is when one day
the mark of the beast on hand or forehead will separate us from the world and
our ability to buy and sell.
We are circumcised in Christ by faith. It is a spiritual circumcision where we
surrender the unfaithful thoughts and deeds of our past to the saving works of
Jesus on the cross. Circumcision is
dying to the sin of infidelity and falsehood to God and being buried with our
old man along with Jesus on the cross.
Jesus was scarred and marked as well on the cross and even before when
they beat Him and tore the beard from his face.
These scars left Him unrecognizable to his disciples on the road after
His resurrection.
Jesus isn’t asking us to be scarred or burned to serve Him
but is it too much to ask that our lives are an example of good works and
dedication to our Lord? Can the world
around you see the circumcision of your heart in the actions of your daily
walk?
12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen
with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from
the dead.
Had Jesus simply been buried as our sacrifice he would not
have become our high priest or been able to make continuing intercession for us
before the Father. When we are baptized
we are buried with Him and our sins are forgiven but we are dead and
useless. We would have no power and be
of no use to the Lord upon the earth.
God however did not stop there; He raised Jesus up from the dead to
stand once again, faultless and holy before God. By faith we too are raised in glory of
incorruptible spirit.
13 And you, being dead in your sins and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having
forgiven you all trespasses;
Once you were dead in Christ you were forgiven. Your spirit and flesh have been made alive
right along side Jesus. God has forgiven
you every trespass against Him. You have
been forgiven for the trespasses you committed before as well as the ones you
commit next week and next year. As long
as you continue to walk before God in faith His blood continues to cleanse you
day by day and moment by moment.
14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was
against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to
his cross;
Romans 7:9 says, “…the
law came, sin revived and I died.”
Sin is what God says it is.
Why? Because He says so. How do we know? We know because God sent us His law so we
will have no excuse for not doing the right thing. According to Romans 8:2 there is another law
called “the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.” This is the law we now obey and this law has
blotted out the laws that had previously condemned us to Hell. When the Roman soldiers nailed Jesus to the
cross they were in effect nailing the Old Testament commandments to the cross
with Him. There is a requirement in
Romans 8:1 that says there is no condemnation to those who stop walking after
the flesh (which is listed in Galatians 5:19-21) and who walk in the Spirit
(Galatians 5:22-23).
I know there are those who believe that once you have
accepted Christ as your Savior you can’t lose your salvation. This has not been proven to me
adequately. There are too many
scriptures (such as the parable of the talents) which appear to say that as
long as you press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus
you are one hundred percent safe but if you take the talents God has given you
when you are born again and bury them or ignore them or even walk away from God
that it isn’t such a sure thing.
I understand us wanting to be safe no matter how much we
live like the devil but is that really what God promises? I’m sure some of you are screaming “YES!”
right now but if you can’t provide sound scriptural evidence that overrules
everything else I have read about serving God then please don’t shout at me. God is perfectly willing to save you free of
charge and embrace you like a son or daughter but He will not have bastard
children who will not obey or submit.
Does He expect perfection in your thought life and walk right away? No. Let me ask that again. Does God expect perfection in your thought
life right away? NO!!!! He does however expect you to PRESS toward the
mark of your calling every day.
I do have a question for those of you who embrace this ‘once
saved always saved’ philosophy. Why do
you feel God should save someone who believes in Him enough to pray the prayer
but not enough to TRY and live saved?
Notice I didn’t say, “live saved.”
I said, “try.” God expects Christ
in us to make a difference on how we live our lives. He has empowered us and runs interference for
us and all He expects in return for this magnanimous gift is to do our best
(even if it is weak.)
15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made
a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
If you only TRY to live saved, God will spoil all the
principalities and powers that have made a failure of you in the past. I love the word spoil as in, “The soldiers
won the battle and took spoil of the enemy.”
How much has Satan stolen from you in the past? God will spoil him and make him give back
what he has taken. For His part God
likes to rub the failure in the devil’s face and let the whole world see. Even when you make mistakes and Satan tries
to accuse you of your sins God looks through those eyes at your life cleansed
by the blood of Christ and sees no sin at all.
One other thing to consider about spoil and spoiling the
enemy; you must be trained to fight and willing to go to war. “The
weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling
down of strongholds.” We are in a
war and if you expect to get spoil you too must engage the enemy and the first
thing a soldier must do is TRAIN FOR WAR.
16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink,
or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
You are going to make mistakes from time to time. You are going to miss it and eat something
that is better left uneaten or drink something likewise. There are days God Himself has set aside to
worship or celebrate or show you love Him and you might miss one of those days
or you might even worship on a Sunday when scripture points to Saturday,
actually from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset.
Many years ago when I had taken stock of what time of year I had gotten
saved and was baptized in the Holy Spirit I discovered that these major events
in my spiritual walk had occurred during Jewish holy days. This wasn’t on purpose or by any thought on
my part. I didn’t even know about Jewish
holy days back then.
God has His own calendar and while many Christians will say
we are not bound by holy days and special food or drink I would endeavor to say
that it is better to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Having said that though, I would also suggest
you examine your life and see if God Himself hasn’t put his fingerprint on your
life. If you remember what days and what
years you were saved or were baptized or had a major spiritual breakthrough,
find out if it connected with a Jewish holiday.
I believe if we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit we will see many
things coincide with the special days of God listed in the Old Testament.
As the ancient Hebrew sages were fond of saying,
“Coincidence is not a kosher word.”
17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is
of Christ.
What does this say?
Those very calendar dates are a shadow of things to come. Since we know that we do not keep them
consciously in Christ then they must be a shadow of things to come after. What comes after Christ? Armageddon, the Millennial reign, the New
Heaven and the New Earth. All these
things come after. It is quite possible
that these days will have even more importance during these latter times. One thing we do know is that the temple of
God during the millennium will only be open on the Sabbath day.
Interesting isn’t it?
18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary
humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath
not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
Angels are created beings that serve God … or not. Satan was a cherub of great power and
beauty. A third of all the angels
followed him when he challenged God’s authority and was cast down. God’s angels will never allow you to worship
them. The only case of an angel other
than the devil allowing someone to worship him was when it was the captain of
the Lord’s host, the angel of the Lord.
In other words it was a pre-incarnate visit by Jesus Himself. Satan tried to get Jesus to worship him and
was rebuked by our Lord.
People will choose anything to worship. I remember a woman in India who worshipped a
white rat in a group of brown rats. When
asked why she said the divine rat was her reincarnated brother and so she fed
and worshipped it so her brother could ascend.
God warns us not to worship idols and creatures and beasts. Our only Lord and Savior is Jesus who is the
Head of this body, the church of God in Christ.
19 And not holding the Head, from which all the body by
joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth
with the increase of God.
These people choose not to accept Christ in His role as our
King of kings and Lord of lords. Christ
and Christ alone binds us all together, nourishing us and causing us to be
interdependent and whole. When we are
one in Him the power of God can flow through us and we are finally able to
accomplish great works. Sadly, we often
fight against one another over foolish differences of opinion and minor points
of doctrine which God Himself will correct in due time if we just trust Him.
20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments
of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
Rules are for a dead people with dead spirits and a heart to
do better and serve to give guidance, especially when everything about them
points to lawlessness. Every decent law
we have ever had in any country at any point in its development has come under
attack of ‘progressive’ elements. Adam
and Eve were told to abstain from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. You can see from her
response to Satan in Genesis 3:3 that she had been thinking of it. God said not to eat. She said that God told them not to eat OR
touch. Within her heart she was already
tempted and was strengthening the commandment against the temptation.
Some might say that Eve simply didn’t understand the
commandment of God or that she was a bit slow.
I don’t believe this for a moment.
Adam and Eve were the first humans God had ever made. They were likely to have been geniuses and
highly discerning spiritually. God’s
word didn’t say that the moment they ate of the tree they would begin to
die. He said that the moment they ate of
the tree they would die right then.
It is most likely that Adam and Eve were spiritually alive and more to
the point, totally integrated in spirit, soul and body. There was no serious warfare in the flesh
until Satan came.
Some have said that women are more naturally curious than men. I don’t agree or there would be more women
scientists than men scientists. There is
a reason that Eve struggled with this and Satan was familiar with the deceptive
pull of temptation. He had managed to
get a third of all angels to follow him into banishment; how hard could it be
to trick one young girl who was younger than Adam. The rules were for mankind’s good. The moment she stumbled Heaven must have
rocked. When Adam followed after her in
sin for the sake of love or companionship, their living sanctified spirits were
torn from them and they died as living spirits.
It doesn’t say in scripture how old they were when they fell but after
only 930 years of an eternal lifespan, Adam died.
21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22 Which all are to
perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
Why did God give them the commandment regarding the
tree? What would have happened if they
had never touched it? The question
doesn’t matter because even before He arranged everything God knew they would
fall. Perhaps we ought to ask ourselves
another question and contemplate on it from time to time; why does God allow us
to live in circumstances that make it all but impossible to live holy? The disciples in their writings say that they
were unable to live by the law. Jesus
alone lived and never broke a commandment.
God put a test before Adam and Eve that they could not have
passed since the Serpent made it almost a sure thing they would fail. Mankind has never lived successfully before
God for any length of time. The longest
period of time was probably during Moses (when they still blew it) or possibly
during one of the Judges’ reigns. For
the most part Israel almost always defaulted to the sins of the nations around
them, were punished and then restored (over and over again until God had
enough.) Why? God could have totally destroyed these fallen
angels. He certainly didn’t have to
leave them in our realm.
God does not tempt mankind and yet He allows many things to
lead us astray. He always leaves a way
to come back but what does He expect of us that He needs us to be Special
Forces warriors in the spirit who cannot be tempted or stumble under any
demonic or angelic attack? We know He
loves us. We know He is not willing that
any should perish. We also know that He
expects us to reign with Him. As awesome
as that idea is, one must admit that we just do not know as much about God and
His purposes as we might like. We do
know this, He expects us to follow Him through fire, flood, death and despair. This is not a life for wimps and sissys.
23 Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will
worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honor to the
satisfying of the flesh.
The Torah, the Law of God appears to be full of wisdom,
helping us learn to worship God by humility and keeping our bodies under
subjection but they do not satisfy the flesh or change it from a ravening lion
into a gentle lamb. It rails and begs
and demands no matter how much we feed it.
The flesh does not understand the word NO. It wants.
Excessive gluttony will kill it.
Excessive asceticism will kill it.
Buddha tried to discover how to find ‘enlightenment’ by starving himself
and then feeding himself until he could hardly move. What he missed is that there is no
enlightenment to be found without the living breathing God connected spirit
being in control.
Blessings beloved.
Bishop J.
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