Reflection | Colossians 3:15-17 | 26 May 2021

 

A letter from Anthony...

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.  Colossians 3:15-17

Have you ever had one of those days where you feel as though everything you have done that day was a waste of time?  I imagine we have all experienced those days when we have spent our day trying to complete a project that only seems further from completion by the end of the day.  Something may have broken as we pulled it apart, or the project itself may have turned out to be far more work than we had ever expected.  It is frustrating when we invest a lot of time, energy and resources into something without any sense of productivity at the end of the day.  However, achieving something doesn’t always have to be our purpose.

Our purpose in God’s eyes is a calling to faithfully follow Jesus.  In the Colossians passage above, this is described as a call to peace, to thankfulness, to encourage each other with the good news of the hope we have in Jesus, and doing all things in gratitude for God’s glory.

If our purpose is to be faithful to the calling our Saviour has placed on us – rather than successful in this life, if we are doing whatever we are doing in the name of the Lord Jesus – giving thanks to God the Father through Him, then our success will not ultimately be measured by how productive we are, but instead by our faithfulness to our calling to follow Jesus.

Now of course this is not going to stop our frustration on those ‘two steps forward, and three steps backward’ kind of days.  I am sure that we have all experienced times when it has been hard to see how God could be using our circumstances for His glory and our good. 

But if our purpose is to be faithful to our calling to follow Jesus – regardless of the life stage and situation we are in – then it is far easier to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts.  May He guide and shape our hearts by His word as we lay our desire for success at the foot of the cross, and as we rest in the certain hope of salvation that can only be found in Jesus. 

In Christ, Anthony