Without Blemish

DEVOTION

COLOSSIANS


WITHOUT BLEMISH

Col 1:21-23

21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
NIV

Within the human condition we must face the irrefutable fact we have sin in our lives. Perfection within this state of physical being is impossible, no matter how hard we might try to live a holy and righteous life, we are going to fail. No matter how close our walk with our Lord is, sin, in some form, invades our being. How then can we possibly come into the presence of God? How dare we even to image to step into His holy presence, yet that is exactly what we are to do and in fact do with the assurance of being accepted and embraced by our Lord. This wonderful experience is ours through faith in the death of Jesus Christ. Because of His death on the cross, even in our sad condition of failure, we can stand in the sight of God without blemish and even without accusation. We can stand free from being accused of the sin that continues to beseech our members. The question, of course with the answer, is should we then just determine to continue in sin that God’s grace may abound, God forbid!

However, even with the greatest of our efforts to make ourselves holy and without sin will result in a miserable failure, so we are left with no other course of action then to believe in faith for this condition of being without blemish and accusation. This does carry a condition as declared in verse 23, we must continue in our faith, we must be established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This again is not a command to live a life of effort to be without blemish, but to live without doubt that Jesus Christ died for our sins and through him we have salvation and reconciliation with God. That through Christ and Christ alone we may approach the throne of God.

Therefore there is no room for pride in our life, but rather pride in Christ and His life and death for sinners such as us.