And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.
Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
Public ShamingThere are complete cultures that work off the principle of shame. Those who break the law are not put into prison, they are publicly shamed. The Amish practice this. If you break faith with the community you are shunned. It is as if you did not even exist.
Amazingly this is exactly what God has done to every spiritual force that once controlled those who are now in Christ. We were once dead, like road-kill on the highway of life, until Christ took our sin on the cross and we received a full pardon from God. In the cross, Christ suffered the shame of bearing our sin but the spiritual forces in opposition to God suffered the public shame of annihilation.
Paul writes, “In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.” The spiritual forces that are tying to destroy me and pull me down are no longer armed. They are merely taunting me. Like a leashed dog, they cannot attack me.
The only problem is, I struggle to remember these forces are impotent. I hear them barking and think they are hot on my trail and about to devour me. I tie myself up in worry about something powerless to defeat me. When I focus again on the cross, however, I discover what I was afraid of has already been put to shame and what sounded like barking was really whimpering defeat. In Christ I have victory even when I don’t feel victorious.
God of greatness and power, I confess my tendency to listen to the wrong voices when I am discouraged. Help me to always focus on the cross of Christ and therein find my victory and strength. Help me see the limitations of the enemy and the unlimited power of God. - Dan Jones
Extreme Home MakeoverWhat a show! I’ve only watched it a couple of times but am impressed by the speedy and total transformation – actually demolition and rebuilding – of a home. With almost unlimited cash and creative talent, the end product inevitably amazes the returning family and fills them with profuse thanks.
I wish God worked an extreme makeover to my life in a matter of weeks. I’d be happy for months or a couple of years. But then I’m a bit more complex than a house, and thankfully (painfully?), possess personhood. So my extreme makeover takes a lifetime and then some.
In the makeover process, God never sends me off on vacation. Though I wish it could happen that way. Go off to Disney for a week and return to myself a totally new person doesn’t quite work. I’m the one who has to choose to follow Jesus every new day.
In each new situation I have to make the conscious choice to “let” God build my life on Jesus. I’m the one who either “lets” my life sink deeper into him or prevents it. The questions I ask, the assumptions I make, the responses I choose, the priorities I set, all become the construction materials God uses to build a new me.
God does the makeover, but I’m intimately involved each step of the way.
Whether a given step brings pain or joy, tears or celebration, I’m discovering that the more my life resembles his, the more thankful I am. It’s not the drop-your-jaw in awe kind of response that the TV family has when the bus pulls away and reveals their new home. It’s a quieter appreciation for my growing faith and the new, life-giving ways I am thinking and living. It’s a thankfulness for the rewarding qualities my life slowly takes on.
Thank you, God! Thank you for the tearing down demolition (or cutting off circumcision!). And thank you for the reconstruction; for the daily grace you give that enables me to follow you through entire process. - Mike Leamon
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