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April 13th, 2023
Scripture
God was pleased for all of himself to live in the Son. And through him, God was happy to bring all things back to himself again—things on earth and things in heaven. God made peace through the blood sacrifice of his Son on the cross. – Colossians 1:19-20 ERV
Devotion
What a remarkable statement that God was pleased for all of Himself to live in the Son! At Christmas, we remember and celebrate that God did not leave us alone, searching in the dark trying to find our way to Him. Rather, through Jesus, the Son of God, God reveals that He wants us to know Him and have a relationship with Him. He came near to us in the vulnerability of our human bodies and conditions so that, through His sacrifice, we may have peace with God and be made complete in Jesus (Colossians 2:9-10).
In Colossians, Paul was confronting a deceptive teaching that was creeping into the church (Colossians 2:8). It seems that this teaching originated from the culture at large, but the church was mixing it with Christian beliefs. It taught that a person obtained the fullness of God through ascetic rituals that revealed a secret knowledge to allowed him or her to access the realm of the gods (Colossians 2:16-23).
But Paul declares that Jesus completely turned this teaching on its head. In Jesus, God came to us, fully revealed Himself, and through His death, made us complete! “Yes, Christ is now your life, and when He comes again, you will share in his glory” (Colossians 3:4). As we grow in our understanding of Jesus, we become more and more like Him (Colossians 3:10). At Christmas, we rejoice in Jesus, our Emmanuel, who in His relentless love for us, stepped into our world and saved us by His death and resurrection.
Inspirational Image of the Day
