Day 5: What just happened?!

Bible Reading: Colossians 1

Have you ever had one of those I-didn’t-see-that-coming moments, when it all happened so fast and beyond your imagination that you had to start looking for a replay button?

A guy being bullied by security officers as a ‘yahoo-boy’ and asked to kneel down and ’bring it out’ and suddenly on his knees, he turns with a ring and a ‘will you marry him’ to his girlfriend, who is so engrossed begging for him. I didn’t see that coming! Replay, please.

Or maybe it’s some really non-leader-like statement (or tweet) by a Western president that got you saying ‘what?!’ I didn’t see that coming! Replay, please.

Maybe it’s what your favourite band does with a song- just when you thought you had a grip on the song, the electric guitar is playing with such intensity that feels like you’re having an electric shock here in your room. ‘What?!!’ you scream and repeat the track.

Or maybe it’s a move in a sports game. Your team exchanges some impossible straight-from-the-training-ground passes and then someone finishes up the move with such brilliance that leaves you shouting ‘Mad oh!!!’ and waiting for the replay. 

I think this is the attitude Paul is creating for the Colossians over this Christian thing that we got into!

You can almost hear the whole Colossian Church shouting a this-is-so-amazing ‘What??!!’ and an I-can-‘t-believe-it ‘Wooooow!!’ as Paul reels out the beauty of the Christian life.

We can anchor our reading today around the framework:

• The Privileges of the Christian’s life (v. 1- 14)
• The Person of Christian Saviour (v. 15 -22)
• The Pursuits of the Christian. (v 23- 29)

First, Paul is demonstrating the beauty of grace and of love; of the life of faith and hope, and the fruit it brings; the beauty of prayer and then the privilege of being ‘qualified’ by God to share in His inheritance! Can you hear the whole Colossian church shouting ‘What?! Me? Share in the inheritance??!!’

Too good to be true! How? Why?

Because of Jesus!

Paul then demonstrates the beauty of Jesus, our Saviour. We can only see all that just happened by putting the spotlight on Him. He is the one who came as the fullness of God- the Sacrificial redeemer, reconciler and peacemaker.

Wow, what a Saviour!

And then Paul shows the pursuit of a Christian. We strive at it. We continue steadfastly. We are propelled by the weight of what we got in to. A mighty working of God within us necessitates a diligent Christian striving on the outside. 

This is why I continue to toil and struggle—because His amazing power and energy surge within me. Colossians 1:29 VOICE

I pray we also will hold the Christian story as a ‘What-just-happened’ story!  It is a ‘wow, i-never-saw-that-coming’ story that we must never think small of because of familiarity.

May we constantly hear it with ears popping, eyes bulging and hearts grateful, to the point that it propels a striving and pursuit in us.

May we never lose our wonder!

Tolulope Moody

Pray for firm establishment in the faith.

SOMETHING TO PRAY

if indeed you remain in the faith, established and firm, without shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard…Colossians 1:23 NET