#DailyDevotion In Jesus You Will Find All That You Need

Collosians 2:6-12 ⁶Just as you received Christ Jesus as your Lord, so live in Him. ⁷In Him be rooted, built up, and strengthened in your faith, as you were taught, and overflow with thanksgiving. ⁸Be careful or someone will capture you by his philosophy, tricking you with meaningless words, as he follows the traditions of men and the principles of this world rather than Christ. ⁹In Him, that is, in His body, lives all the fullness of the Deity, ¹⁰And in Him, Who is the Head of all rulers and powers, you are complete. ¹¹In Him you also were circumcised, not by human hands but by putting away the sinful body by the circumcision of Christ ¹²since in baptism you were buried with Him and raised with Him through faith produced by the power of God, Who raised Him from the dead.

Christ Jesus is given to us through the preaching of the word and we receive him through the word. That word is often joined to elements Christ commanded and we call those things sacraments. We received these things by grace: we received Christ Jesus by grace. In similar fashion St. Paul exhorts us to live in Christ Jesus the very Word of God.

“In Him” St Paul tells us to be rooted, built up, strengthened in our faith and overflow with thanksgiving. How do we do that? The same way we came to faith. We are rooted in him, strengthened in him and overflow with thanksgiving in him by continually receiving him by grace through faith by listening to the word and receiving the sacrament. Jesus’ word (and that would be the whole bible) is life, eternal life and Spirit. As we hear his word and believe it, trust what it says and as we receive the sacrament in similar fashion, the Holy Spirit builds us up, strengthens us in our faith in which we give thanks to God for his great mercy.

Paul warns against meaningless words, traditions of men and the principles of this world instead of following Christ. Now there is a twofold thing Paul is warning us of: Jewish traditions which sucked the life and power of the word the Lord had given Israel in the Torah and b. pagan philosophy, which does not lead to life. Such things we are not called to follow. Jesus is our philosophy and our wisdom. You need only meditate upon his word.

Now Paul makes a most powerful statement. In Jesus, that is in his body, the fullness of deity lives. In other words, Jesus is God. He is not just the Son of God (i.e. something less than being fully God) but as the Son of God he is equal to God concerning his divine nature. Jesus is the walking, talking, living, breathing temple of the Lord according to his humanity and the Lord himself according to his divinity. He is the very image and likeness of God, the exact imprint of God’s nature.

So in Jesus we are complete, Paul says. We have received the circumcision not done by hands in our baptism. There, the Holy Spirit circumcised our hearts, which is the putting away of the sinful body. In our baptism, we are joined to Christ body and all he has done in it, most especially his death and resurrection. We are joined to his work through faith which was wrought in us by the power of God. This faith we ourselves do not produce. The Spirit through the water and the word produces it. It is sustained by continually being in the word and receiving the other sacrament, the Lord’s Supper. Jesus, who is God in the flesh, gives us his life, his works, his death, his resurrection, his ascension and his God and Father with the Holy Spirit through faith and by the grace given us through the word and sacraments. So remain in these things and be rooted in him.

Gracious God and Father, in Jesus your only begotten son you have wrought our salvation and give us that salvation in him through the word and sacraments. Ever draw us to these gifts that through them you would continually by your power in them give us faith. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.