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News of the ministry
Every time you visit our site, be sure to read the latest postings in the center column of the Home Page. These items are taken from my reading and give snippets of truth from a multitude of authors in just a page or half a page. Recent items include:
Present yourself by Watchman Nee
Beware Christian junk food by Anne Graham Lotz
Jesus in me by Chuck Broughton
The big bucket of grace by Dwight Davis
The subtility of self-effort by Warren Litzman
Dust off your Bible by Gipsy Smith
There are over 90 of these quotes now online. When you subscribe to our RSS feed, you are notified every time a new posting is made.
A Christian's Positive Goals, cont.
[We continue our thoughts on Colossians chapter 1]
"So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Colossians 1:10). This is what living the Christian life is all about. A life worthy, of the same value as Christ, and we can live it because He showed us how it can be done. One of the problems you and I have is that we're trying to do something that's never been done, and that is to live out our lives. When you look at it from the human level that's really something. But when you look at it from the Christian level we don't have to try to live out our lives. We have to live out His life, and that makes life an experience with no stress or strain.
Also in verse 10 is another positive goal for a Christian -- "to bear fruit in every good work". There is no better work to be fruitful in than to share the good news with other people. Tell them, and bring them into the family. Get them to enjoy the same benefits as you do. There are other works that are good, and you can think of those that fit your particular situation. To be fruitful means to grow. God wants you to grow. He wants you to develop your ability to help others. Again, its the principle of giving and receiving. You give a little time to help somebody else. You do a small act to help them and it will come back to you. This week on television there was a report of somebody who had a terrible debilitating handicap that was really very difficult. The way they received their healing was to take their eyes off the problem and start helping somebody else. And when they did that, they were healed. Again, what is that? The principle of giving and receiving. Get your eyes off yourself, get it on somebody else, and then watch the blessings flow back in. That is beautiful, "to bear fruit in every good work".
Then verse 10 continues "and increasing in the knowledge of God" or the realization of God. We start off as seeing the God Who sent His Son to die for us. Then we see Him further as a father figure and we realize that we are in a relationship. That relationship develops and we read the Bible more and discover that God is everywhere. Wherever you go God is. There's no place you can go where He is not present. We rejoice in this immensity of God, and then we read the Bible even deeper and see that it's God in Christ in me. Now we really appreciate God in a greater measure. That is what we are doing week by week. The more we hear and read the Word of God, the more we grow in the knowledge of God. If you don't think you're getting enough on Sunday mornings, then "a verse a day will keep the devil away". Get some food during the week. You can't have one snack on Sunday morning and think you're going to last all week long -- it just doesn't work that way. Get your teeth into the Book and grow in the knowledge, in the realization of God.
Now, you might also notice three words in verses 9 and 10 -- wisdom, walk, and work. Mark them in your Bible. That is the divine order. First discover God's wisdom, know what God says about the situation, then you can walk on it and it will produce the work, the fruit God wants for you. You cannot change the order. If you want the fruit you must tap into God's wisdom first. That is the cycle and that is how we grow and increase in God. What a powerful, positive goal for the Christian! What is a goal? It has been defined a hundred ways in these days of success philosophy. We need to be careful that a goal doesn't become a rut. Someone said a goal is a moving target. I like that because my goals for this year are different from what my goals need to be for next year. My goals need to increase and grow as I increase and grow. A goal is a moving target, and as we take in God's wisdom we increase our goals and so we grow further.
In verse 11 is another positive goal for the Christian. "May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy." Let's start with the first phrase of the verse -- "strengthened with all power". The Greek word for "power" is from the word "dunamis", from which we get the English word "dynamo". The power in a dynamo, an old word for "generator", is not power that you can measure or feel or see until the dynamo starts turning. It is potential power, like the power in the car battery. In our current vehicle we have a wonderful setup that when I get out of the car the interior light stays on. I walk away and I get up to the front step of my house yet the light is still on in the car, so I hesitate. I turn round to go back to turn the light off, and then it turns off all on it's own. It has a mind of it's own. Wonderful things, these modern cars!
The car's battery has potential power, and the moment I walk out the next day and put the key in the lock and open the door, the light comes back on again. The potential power was sitting there all the time just waiting for me to do something. That is how the power of God is in our lives. We are "strengthened with all power" -- we are powered with all His power. We are powerful, dynamic people walking through life, and God is waiting for us to get the negative and the positive together so the power does something worthwhile. "Strengthened with all power, according to..." -- the law of standard. According to what? According to our needs? No. According to the source -- "His glorious might" or strength. "Might" here is from "kratos", perfect strength. In the New Testament it is applied only to God. It is power in action, God's power being used. So we have potential power, and its measure is according to the power of God that is in operation in this universe -- that is tremendous power. In fact, Ephesians tells us that it is the same power that God used to raise Jesus Christ from the dead and set Him at his own right hand!
Now, why do we have this power? It says "for all endurance and patience with joy". Ah, patience -- there's the secret my wife has been looking for all these years. She says I need patience. What I need is to operate God's power to produce that patience. The word "endurance" means patience in respect of things and circumstances. How often we get impatient with the speed at which things happen! Patience in respect of trials. Patience in respect of knowing that the sun is going to come up tomorrow morning and it will be another whole day untouched when we can work on that particular situation. A patient endurance is spoken of here.
Then it says "patience with joy" or "longsuffering" (KJV), and that is a good word. It has to do with people. There are some people we suffer long. Yes, we all have them. Yet we have God's power within us and using that power we can say "OK, God, I can't put up with this person any longer. I need your help", and that is when that help floods in to get you through that situation. In fact, it helps you so much that it says we can have both endurance and patience with joy. That's a good way of handling your enemies, isn't it? Endurance and patience with joy. You get excited about it as you see God at work in the situation. So one of my positive goals as a Christian is to manifest God's power in respect of things and people, so I can handle life's situations positively. I believe you and I can handle them if we just recognize that we are loaded with the power of God. -- Peter Wade.
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