Overflowing Thankfulness

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE COLOSSIANS

OVERFLOWING THANKFULNESS

Col 2:6-7

6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

NIV

Everything which was just said is now coming down into this, “so then”. We would have to go back and reread all of what he said to put this into context, but we know the idea. We have the full riches of complete understanding, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We are aware of all the false teachers because we are in Christ and he is in us. So then, just as we have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him. What we have to remember is how we received Christ Jesus as Lord. Let’s see, was it by doing some amount of good deeds? No. Was it by changing the way we lived? No. As we recall, we simply believed that we were saved by faith, by believing Jesus died for our sins and we were forgiven and that he came into our heart. We were changed, but not by our doing, it was Jesus who changed us, and not in the sense of our deeds, but in our heart. We no longer wanted to sin, we no longer hated God as an enemy, but now we were his children. But it was all about faith, not about works. So then if that is how we received Christ Jesus, that is how we are to live in him. We are to be rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as we were taught. That is it in a nutshell. We are to live by faith, the very source of all we need to live, rooted, as a tree cannot live without being rooted. Jesus is our source of energy. Paul made that point that everything he does is through the energy of Christ who works so powerfully in him. This is being rooted in our faith, looking to Jesus for our energy in all we do, how we live. It is so easy to get into the habit of thinking about our knowledge, our education, our training, skills, abilities, strength to accomplish what want or think we should be doing. Within the framework of our culture, even in the church, we give so much credence to diplomas, degrees, or achievements, which are required to occupy certain positions or titles. But in the final analysis, our reaching heaven is based on faith in Jesus Christ. How smart we are, how good we are, how much we have done, may have some bearing on how we live out our faith in this world, but it has nothing to do with leaving this world. Our resurrection and ascension into the heavenly realm of God is solely by faith in Christ Jesus. Living like this brings us such joy and peace, and in fact, we live with overflowing thankfulness. We are so thankful our salvation does not depend on how good we are, or how much we do, or how much we know or what title we hold, other than, a child of God. We are so thankful God does not hold any of our failures against us, for we are in Christ Jesus. Just because we were forgiven once, does not mean now we have to remain sinless, for that is impossible. So then, living by faith includes being forgiven for all our sin, past, present and future, until we leave this body, putting off its corruptibility and putting on incorruptibility in our new glorified body. When we live by faith, how else can we live other than with overflowing thankfulness? Sometimes, it can become easy to slip into a state of discontentment, if we focus too much on our situation in life. Our desires, our wants, our goals can become a source of envy, jealousy or even bitterness, but definitely not a state of thankfulness.  So then let us enjoy the life we have in Christ, living with such an overflowing thankfulness, it exudes from within us till it overflows on others.