COLOSSIANS 2:6-12 - COMPLETE IN CHRIST TO LIVE A NEW LIFE

COLOSSIANS 2:6-12

COMPLETE IN CHRIST

TO LIVE A NEW LIFE

Colossians 2:6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:

How did we receive Christ? God’s grace gave us the faith needed to trust in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and surrender our lives to His control. Therefore, we live by faith in the grace of God as well. We know that there is more to life than what we see. There is an unseen spiritual realm as well.

2 Corinthians 5:7 (AMP)…for we walk by faith, not by sight [living our lives in a manner consistent with our confident belief in God’s promises]

Colossians 2:7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

When Jesus is your root system, your fruit will be thanksgiving. Strong roots require food. Our spiritual food is the word of God, the Bible. The teachings of Paul were letters written to believers which are now a part of our New Testament scriptures. Just as we need physical food daily, we need to feed on scripture daily (maybe several times per day) for best results.

Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Paul warns them about listening to and living by philosophies other than Christ alone. Tradition should not take precedent over the revelation God has given us through Jesus and His word, the Bible.

Colossians 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Colossians 2:9 (CJB) For in him, bodily, lives the fullness of all that God is.

Jesus is the totality of God in human form. Everything that makes up the essence of the God-Head dwelt in Jesus’ earthly body. He was not a man with a little bit of God in Him, nor was He God with a few characteristics of a body. He was all God and all man at the same time. There is no higher authority than Jesus, no greater knowledge than what is found in knowing Him.

Colossians 2:10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

Colossians 2:10 (AMP) And in Him you have been made complete [achieving spiritual stature through Christ], and He is the head over all rule and authority [of every angelic and earthly power].

Jesus’ righteousness has been deposited to our accounts. We are seen as righteous because He shed His blood for us on the cross, to wash away our sin. In Christ, we have also been given all the tools necessary to live a godly life, a life that brings glory to the Lord. If Jesus is in our tool belt, we have need of no other tools.

2 Peter 1:3-4 (NIV) His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

We derive our ability to please God by faith by His grace from the One who is completely in charge of EVERYTHING – Jesus. There is no greater power. Jesus is large and in charge.

Colossians 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:

Circumcision was a custom that set Jewish men apart from those of other nations and beliefs. It was an outward expression of their inward commitment to the one true God. The circumcision done by Christ is done without physical surgery to our hearts, our natures, to cut away anything that hinders our relationship to Him.

Deuteronomy 30:6 (NIV) The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.

Colossians 1:12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

Baptism by immersion symbolizes what Jesus has done in the person’s life, the old person has been buried; and a brand-new person emerges to walk with Jesus. The person is now free to live according to the purposes of God rather than to be enslaved to Satan. It symbolizes the believer’s death to sin and being resurrected to life with Jesus and is a foreshadowing of the day when we will be raised to life in order to be with our Lord forever.

Ponder This: Complete in Christ – no missing pieces, no need of tradition or works – complete peace (shalom) – nothing missing, nothing broken. Christ enters us via the Holy Spirit and surgically removes our insufficiencies to be replaced with His sufficiency.