From Enemy to Faultless

Colossians 1:21-23(NLT)

21 This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 22 Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

23 But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it.

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I am the worst sinner. 

I have disobeyed God and spit in His face. Because of my thoughts and actions (both evil), I was separated from God. 

I was His enemy.

 But His love couldn't stand to be apart from me. He loved me—His enemy—enough to die.

His blood has brought me into His presence. 

He calls me holy and blameless! He sees me without a single fault through His eyes of mercy. 

What a God! What a love! 

But this should encourage us to continue in our faith, stable and steadfast, and not shifting from this hope.

This knowledge—reaffirming knowledge that we were enemies and now are holy—should push and encourage us to share the gospel without fear.

For Christ lives in us and this should give us the assurance—this should give me the assurance—of sharing his glory.

Growing in What We Believe

“We learn to believe by believing… The practice of acting on a certain thing, even (or especially) when feeling is absent, embodies the entire ‘how’ of growth.” Eugenia Price

Growing is difficult. How do we grow in what we believe? By acting on what we believe even when we don’t feel like it.

“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” Hebrews 2:1

If we don’t grow closer to God, we’ll find ourselves drifting away. The next couple of verses in Hebrews talks about if we neglect this great salvation—if we choose not to deepen our walk with Christ, we will receive punishment.

God promises in James 4:8 that if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us.

There’s so much more of God that He wants to teach us. He desires us to grow in Him because only then will we obtain true joy.

“Eternity will never be long enough to learn all He is, or to praise Him for all He has done, but then, that matters not; for we shall be always with Him, and we desire nothing more.” A W Tozer