Colossians 2:23

Posted by on Apr 1, 2013

Have you labored over work diligently only to see the result of that diligence producing no value because it was all wrongly placed diligence?

Paul is writing to the believers in Colossee.  He spends the majority of Chapter 2 walking them through who they are positionally before God because of Jesus Christ:  They had received a circumcision made without hands (the purifying of their hearts vs11), they had been buried with Christ in baptism (vs12), they had been raised with him with the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead (vs12), God made them truly alive to him (vs13), and the record of debt towards God was canceled (vs14).

But just like the believers in Colossee we who would identify ourselves as believers and disciples of Jesus Christ can so easily fall into the deception of a self made religion.  At the end of Chapter 2 we find that they had submit themselves to regulations (rules) Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.  Now there is benefit in these things but not if you are looking to them to for holiness if life.  Reading to the end of the chapter (vs23c):

23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

Rules are of no value in killing the flesh (indwelling sin).  Pursuing holiness in life and fleeing fleshly sin needs to be pursued by 2 verses into Chapter 3.

3 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.

If I am a believer in Jesus Christ, and desire a pursuit of holiness of life am I thinking on the things that God has done for me in Jesus Christ (things above)?  Am I thinking on where I positionally stand before God as a result of these gospel realities?

I pray that you have a day filled with thinking on the gospel, and what God has positionally done for those in Christ because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.