Mon 8.1 - In His Name?!?!
Posted by knowgrowshow on April 7, 2008
Today’s Readings: Colossians 3.17,23; I Corinthians 10.31; Proverbs 3.6
Well guys, welcome to our LAST WEEK of the DIRECTIONS study!!! I’m kind of bummed that this falls on spring break week because that means many of you will be getting these devotions after the fact. However, I am very excited to be able to share this with those who are here! We have lots of great stuff planned for this week around the Fridge, and I hope that you guys plan on being here to hang out with us!!!
You’ll notice that our daily reading section is shorter today. That’s mostly because I want to slow down this week and just look at one thought from our passage in Colossians. There are three verses up there that pretty much teach the same thing. God desires that our life be completely lived IN AND THROUGH HIM!
As a matter of fact, this thought is such an important key to this passage that God repeats it in verse 23 in a slightly different form. There are about three angles we need to approach this verse through, so let’s take the first one today…
1. DO ALL IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS. Now, what’s that all about? Doing everything IN the NAME of Jesus? Well, let’s think about it this way….
Imagine you work for me, and I ask you to pay some bills. What I do is hand you a few blank checks with MY NAME signed on the bottom already. Now those checks BEAR MY NAME and I am asking you to act in a manner (or simply, do thing) that I would act in were I able to do that task. I would expect you to read the electricity, water, gas, and other bills, write in the amounts owed into the checks, as well as the payee. Now when you place those checks into the mail, you are DOING THAT TASK IN MY NAME.
Do you see? My NAME is attached to the things you did because MY name was on the checks. Well, GOD’S NAME is all over our lives. We have seen that clearly through Colossians 3 so far.
This truth brings up a natural question…How do I know what/how I am to do those things in God’s name??? Well, notice how God finished out verse 17. As we do these things (everything) in the NAME of Christ, we are to GIVE THANKS UNTO GOD AND THE FATEHR BY HIM. So, here’s the simple question that will clarify whether or not the action is being properly done IN the NAME of Christ, Can I thank God for this?
Simply put, if we cannot answer with a confident YES! then the thing is not done in accordance with His name. We cannot THANK GOD for that time we made out with that person in the car in their driveway. We cannot thank God for that job that is causing us to miss church. We cannot thank God for the fight we just had with our parents. Those things are NOT things done in the NAME OF CHRIST because they are NOT things that God can be thanked for, because He is nowhere near that stuff.
Spend some time today asking God to open your eyes to the truth of living in HIS name and not yours today! Ask Him to show you the things that He can get no thanks for in our lives that need to change! And as we change, and as He lives through us, let’s “give thanks unto God and the Father by Him.”
