ALL INCLUDED

When we keep on reading in 1:23 it says “if ye continue in the faith and be not moved away from the Gospel” . Most of course would say that we have to continue to have faith for this to be so but that is not what this verse is saying at all. If you do not stay grounded in the faith, does this mean you are no longer unreproveable in God’s sight? Of course not because that is a once for all event that was done at the cross. What will happen is that you will lose the awareness of it when you move away from what the Gospel actually says and you will feel the alienation in your mind. You will move back under the condemnation of the law because the law points out faults.

We must stay “in the faith” because the faith of Jesus that we live by points out righteousness and that you are unblameable, holy and unreproveable in His sight. It is very important to continue seeing ourselves in this light if we are to continue having His peace and grace in our lives. If we go back to seeing ourselves and others through the eyes of the law, we are reverting back to the old way of thinking that we had for years and all that did was keep us in bondage and condemnation. Stay “in the faith” and your mind will not be condemning you and make you feel like God has left your side.

Yesterday I mentioned a bit about the word unreproveable and I went a bit further this morning for a truer meaning. In God’s sight being “unreproveable” means He cannot call in any debt or charge against you, He cannot bring you to account for anything, you stand unaccused and blameless is His sight. We have to keep in mind that it is in His sight that this is. In other words there is absolutely nothing that can ever stand between you and God. It has all been paid for fully and completely by Jesus at the cross on our behalf. We are now “in Christ” and that is where God sees us. That is why we are seen as holy and perfect.

Don’t let any church doctrine move you away from seeing this awesome truth contained in these few verses. Don’t let anyone try to lead you away from what is so clearly settled in many verses written by Paul. Letting anyone steer you away from these truths will only bring you back under guilt and condemnation. I personally had enough of that for over 25 years and I am simply not interested in any church doctrine that places the onus back on me to obtain anything from God.
I walked away from that system 6 or 7 years ago and began my search for Truth and have absolutely no intention of returning to their bondage and control.

If you are beginning to see things “the old way” again, then you are slowly removing yourself from the faith (v23) and you will begin to see things in light of the law like you were in times past. As I stated in my post of August 16/07, I will not be moved. There is nothing to move back to once you have experienced the freedom from guilt and condemnation that comes when we begin to understand the Gospel of Grace and Peace. Be careful who you listen to. It could be detrimental to your spiritual health.

When your mind begins to be renewed to the truth of the Gospel, you will see that this is a false assumption. You will see that nothing can separate you from the love of God. Your deeds and actions are no longer being held or marked against you by God. When you sin, because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, it cannot be held against you. Its been paid for in full and God is satisfied that the sin issue has been dealt with once and for all.

We were all told that when we came to Christ our slate was wiped clean and Jesus had taken care of all our sins, up to that point at least. But then we were told that each and every time we would do something wrong it was written again on that same slate that had been wiped clean. The problem with this is that it is certainly true that our slate was wiped clean but this was not done when we first came to knowledge of the Lord. This was done at the cross and not only was it wiped clean, the slate no longer exists because God does not hold any wrong doing against anyone as we have seen.

We now come to verse 22 in Colossians chapter 1 and we see that through His death He presents us as holy, unblameable and unreproveable. We all know that when we look at people or they look at us, they do not see us nor do we see them in a way that appears they are holy, righteous and unblameable. We look at people in the flesh and also look at their deeds and actions. I guess we would be hard pressed to have anyone follow any of us around for a few days or even a few hours and they would be able to say whether we appear to be holy and unblameable. I guess most of us could ask our spouses just how perfect we are and if they were honest………well you get the drift.

Did God send His Son into the world to reconcile people that would never again commit sin? If He did then it is quite apparent that He failed miserably. I am sure most of us will agree that we at times do things that would be classed sin in the eyes of the church world. So if we have been reconciled and we still do things we ought not, then how can we look at this and still know we are reconciled to God?

In order to properly understand verse 22 you have to read the last part of the verse which I left out when I quoted it. This portion of the verse holds the key as to its meaning. This part of the verse says it clearly that we are holy, unblameable and unreproveable IN HIS SIGHT. This has nothing to do with how I see things in my mind or how you see others through your own thoughts either. This reconciliation where we are seen as holy and perfect is in God’s eyes. We put the emphasis on ourselves and others in order to see people as holy and perfect. The emphasis has to be placed on what Jesus did to reconcile us back to God and it has nothing to do with our own actions and deeds.

This was accomplished at the cross and it is at that time that He reconciled all. I know this is not the popular belief when it comes to saying that He reconciled all but in order to not agree that it is all, then a verse like this has to be skipped over and I suppose pretend that it is not saying He reconciled all.

I am sure that the vast majority of us have felt at one time or another alienated from God. We were of course sure He had left us because it sure felt at the time that He did. Verse 21 says that at times the Colossians felt that alienation but Paul was writing to them in this particular verse to let them know that they were never in fact alienated from Him because He had just finished telling them they had all been reconciled back to God. He then tells them where this alienation comes from. It is simply in our minds. Regardless of how strong you felt this alienation, it was only in your mind. The mind needs to be renewed to the Gospel and then we can see that even our wicked works do not alienate us. We may think and feel we are, but it is only in our minds.

Can our works, whether good or bad alienate us or bring us closer to God? No of course not but if our minds are not renewed, then we will think exactly that. When we do good we will think we are drawing closer to Him and when we do bad we will think we have been pushed aside by Him until such a time as we do good again and ask forgiveness, only to wait a few days and do the same things over again.

We have to have our minds renewed so we can see the Gospel for what it is. He made peace between the human race and God through the blood He shed on the cross. We have to get our minds renewed to see this so that when we do feel alienated, instead of condemnation we will see we are still ok in our right standing with God, apart from anything we do or don’t do. Blessed is the man whom God declares righteous even though he has not done it right. Blessed is the man that when he sins, God does not count it against him. To know these things is the only way to have the peace of God reign in our hearts and minds.

If we continue to walk in condemnation because of what deeds and actions we do, then our minds need to be renewed to what the Gospel actually says. Jesus did not die because of our actions and deeds. He died for the sin of unbelief that was dropped on the entire human race by the sin of Adam. If our righteousness is determined by what we do to gain it or keep it, then lets all be honest with ourselves……..none of us will ever even come close to making it. If you are reading this thinking you can establish your own righteousness then perhaps you should read Romans 10 and see what Paul told them about this very thing. They needed to be saved from their ignorance because they were trying to establish their own righteousness. If you are trying to establish your own right standing with God (righteousness) by your church attendance, tithing, doing good deeds etc., then you as well need to be saved from your ignorance of God’s righteousness.