Fri 4.5 – What’s the point?

Today’s Readings: Col 3.5-7; 2 Chr 33.1-2, Eph4.17-20, 5.3-10

Have you ever seen something weird, and thought to yourself, “What’s the point?” Like this picture for example. Can’t you just imagine a year down the road, when the group from the picture is sitting down to dinner, reminiscing about that vacation they took. So they break out the pictures, and can’t seem to remember who was who in this one…what’s the point in a picture like this? It can’t really be too important, or serve too great a purpose?

Now, with that kind of thinking in mind, check out our passage from Colossians today.

Remember, we’re talking about mortifying our bodies. We have seen how we must KILL the desires of our natural selves and pursue the SPIRITUAL desires of Christ in us.

In Colossians 3.6, God talks about those people who do not mortify themselves, those people who live according to their own lusts. What name does He give to them? He calls them “children of disobedience”. Since we, who are saved, are his children, we should be ANYTHING but those who disobey Him. As a matter of fact, behaving in the manner in which Christ did is supposed to be true of every believer (I John 2.6). God explains that this disobedience caused His wrath to come on them. Wow. I guess God does care about our obedience to scripture!

Notice His next words in verse 7. The reason we shouldn’t live our lives being controlled by the members of our bodies, is because freedom from that bondage is part of salvation. God says they WALKED, past tense – as in they do not do it any more. There is a change that occurs at salvation. Things are supposed to be different now. When once we lived our lives seeking to fulfill every lust of our flesh for food, acceptance, sex, success, etc., we now live our lives seeking THINGS ABOVE. God said those who turned away from Him and went back to allowing the natural desires of their bodies to control them were the CHILDREN OF DISOBEDIENCE! They didn’t mortify their members, but instead gave into them and allowed those members to be their God!

Look at God’s commentary about the Kingdom under Manasseh’s reign. What was it that made them wicked before God? They acted like the HEATHEN whom God had destroyed in order to put them in the promised land to begin with. Wouldn’t it be a shame if the same was said of us concerning our lives here today!?! What if God could look out and say, “Nick was evil before me because he lived his life according to the lustful desires of his body that I freed him from when I saved him. Because Nick returned to the bondage I freed him from, he is a child of disobedience.” Man, that would be hard to hear.

You’ll see a couple passages from Ephesians above. I recommend we conclude our time with God today by reading through those passages and asking His Spirit to show us areas that we may need to mortify in our lives to keep His commentary on our lives from being like the one from 2 Chron. Amen!