Subvert....
Col. 1:1-8 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
[2] To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
[3] We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, [4] because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— [5] the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel [6] that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth. [7] You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow-servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, [8] and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
It is an incredible though that all over the world the Gospel is bearing fruit, yet when you stop to think about it a little it should be obvious.
Take your own life and examine how it has changed since you met with Jesus. The truth is that you may not be happy with how much you’ve changed – I think that if we’re honest all of us would say that we’d like to have seen more change that we would like to be like Jesus more and more. Objectively some of us may say that we have made more progress than others. But this isn’t the point here. The truth is that since meeting Jesus most of us will have changed to be more like him. This is what the Bible calls fruit, it is the evidence that Jesus is living in us, and that we are attached to the vine (John 15).
And this fruit is growing in the hearts of all the believers that you know, and in all the believers that you don’t know too. In fact all across the world there are people who are growing more and more to be like Jesus. And as they grow their influence spreads, their love touches more and more people, the light that shines amongst them grows brighter and brighter.
This is what Jesus meant when he said that we should have faith like a mustard seed, because Jesus understood that it would grow to be something that is huge. The world is full of big problems, sometimes it seems that conflict is inevitable, that force must be met with force. But what if instead of conflict, force met with something even more subversive than violence? What if it was met with love, the true fruit of the Gospel? Imagine that….
[2] To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
[3] We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, [4] because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— [5] the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel [6] that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth. [7] You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow-servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, [8] and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
It is an incredible though that all over the world the Gospel is bearing fruit, yet when you stop to think about it a little it should be obvious.
Take your own life and examine how it has changed since you met with Jesus. The truth is that you may not be happy with how much you’ve changed – I think that if we’re honest all of us would say that we’d like to have seen more change that we would like to be like Jesus more and more. Objectively some of us may say that we have made more progress than others. But this isn’t the point here. The truth is that since meeting Jesus most of us will have changed to be more like him. This is what the Bible calls fruit, it is the evidence that Jesus is living in us, and that we are attached to the vine (John 15).
And this fruit is growing in the hearts of all the believers that you know, and in all the believers that you don’t know too. In fact all across the world there are people who are growing more and more to be like Jesus. And as they grow their influence spreads, their love touches more and more people, the light that shines amongst them grows brighter and brighter.
This is what Jesus meant when he said that we should have faith like a mustard seed, because Jesus understood that it would grow to be something that is huge. The world is full of big problems, sometimes it seems that conflict is inevitable, that force must be met with force. But what if instead of conflict, force met with something even more subversive than violence? What if it was met with love, the true fruit of the Gospel? Imagine that….
posted by Gordon at
9:30 am
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