31.05 | In Him
Colossians 1:24-2:23
‘Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him’
Colossians 2:6
When me and my sisters were growing up, one of our favourite board games was Cluedo.1 The version that we played with had belonged to my Dad when he was younger, which gave it a vintage quality. Made in an age before everything became plastic, the various murder weapons of the game were properly made. An actually sharp, metal dagger; lead piping made of lead; rope made of string, and so on. The purpose of Cluedo is to solve a mystery, and the game all works towards the revealing of this mystery at the end.
Mystery is the theme of today’s passage. It was catching onto something that was going on in the church in Colossae, because the believers there were fascinated by this idea of mystery. They were looking for secret revelations of God—espoused in philosophies and rules and asceticism and angel worship. It all sounded sounded spiritually impressive, and yet such ‘mysteries’ were just tangling the Colossians up into a cultish melée of complexity, stealing the simplicity of their focus and taking their eyes of the purity and power of what they had received.
This is actually so much more common than we think. Christian discipleship is really just simple truths, that keep going deeper. Growth usually comes, not through discovering some novelty, but through journeying deeper into something that we already “knew” with our heads, and yet had not yet so deeply grasped in our hearts. A simple phrase such as ‘God loves you’ is one that we’ll spend eternity exploring. Novelty is extraordinarily overrated. Like the McDonalds pizza of the 1990s, novelties tend to quickly pass.
Paul is returning the Colossians back to the only ‘mystery’ that they need to concern themselves with. He’s taking them back to the exclusive place where God’s will and purposes and salvation plan is revealed.
Jesus.
And this is the sum and total of his writing today.
You want to know what God has revealed? You want to know His plans and purposes? You want to know the best way to live? You want to know how to be perfectly reconciled to the Father, and how He is establishing His reign—that defeats all darkness—in the world today?
Jesus.
It’s all about Him. Your growth and life and wisdom and power will all only grow inasmuch as you grow in a lived, relational, knowledge of Him.
This mystery is not a practice or a law or a philosophy or a secret revelation.
It is a person. He is the mystery. He is the revelation. He is the Way and the Truth and the Life.
In Him are all wisdom and knowledge.
Walk out your life in Him.
Be rooted and built up in Him.
You find all the fullness of God in Him, you are filled in Him, you were circumcised (metaphorically) in Him, you were raised in Him, and God triumphed over all darkness at the cross in Him.
Friends, it’s so easy to overcomplicate your spiritual journey. It’s so easy for Christianity and life to be distracted by rules and regulations, by emerging philosophies or competing ideologies. We fuss and fret as to whether we’re doing it right, keeping the right rules, fulfilling all the right duties. But the core and essence of the revelation of God into global history and your history is so simple: it is simply Jesus. And the life He calls you is no more complex or demanding than the daily journey with and towards this real, living, breathing, scarred and enthroned Messiah. He lives in this very moment, with blazing eyes and passionate desires set towards you. Truly the deepest and most sainted lives of history haven’t been the most complicated, but rather have been those who kept their basic direction, every day, simply and consistently, Him.
Reflect:
Are there things that are complicating my faith at the moment? Are there things that have subtly taken my eyes off the basic friendship with Jesus from which everything else comes?
Simply, repent (turn), and come back to Him.
Reorder you vision of today, with all tasks as a journey with Him and towards Him.
Pray:
Lord Jesus,
Help me to simplify.
Where ideologies or philosophies,
Rules or requirements,
Practices and achievements,
Or indeed any other thing,
Has stolen my gaze from you,
I let these fall away,
And I simplify.
Let this day be a journey towards you.
Not ideas about you,
Or trying to do things for you,
Or trying to be impressive in your Name,
But, Lord,
A simple doing of all things
Toward you, and with you,
That my life may be found and lived and expressed,
In You.
Lord Jesus, in Your Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
1 Kings 16:29-18:46 | Proverbs 15:28-33
Cluedo, if you’ve not played it, is a board game built around solving a murder: various characters, rooms of the house, and murder weapons are suggested, with each player playing detective, and the winner being the person who successfully solves the case.
Thank you for this brilliant reminder.