Daily Meditations from John N. N. Ng'ang'a: 6 Sept - 12 Sept 2010 ..... In Christ we Live…. Enjoying not Enduring

 

Day 1

Col 1:20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. NIV

Christ is in the ministry of making peace.

Through him ,one of the effects of Easter is to bring peace, to make peace.But when you come to Christ He makes peace even in any situations. how does He accomplish that? Through his blood…. it is the blood that gives you peace. Without the blood you are already in enmity with God. But because of the righteous blood of Jesus you are forgiven. You are now friends with God again. And when you become friends with God He gives you his peace. He brings reconciliation…for he reconciles all things to himself. The problem may be with your son, you can have a problem with somebody else, you can have a problem with God but in all these He reconciles. And what is to reconcile? To bring friendship again.

Whatever it is you are having difficulty with, any human being, remember God is able to bring reconciliation. But reconciliation that must start is reconciliation with God. Whether things on earth or things in heaven… He can still bring reconciliation.

 

Day 2

Col 1:21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.NIV

In other words… before you were saved you were actually enemies with God. You cannot be in between. You are either friends with God or enemies with God. And if you are not born again you are actually God's enemy…... you had refused to obey him. That's what he is saying. Once you were alienated from God. You were away from God. But to be enemies ….. it starts with your mind. God has brought you together because of your evil behavior. The way you behaved showed that you were enemies.

 

Day 3

Col 1:21-22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation-NIV

In other words because of what He did on the cross He has reconciled you through the physical body or the physical body of Christ, to present you in his sight without blemish. Can you imagine that? With all your failures, he is still promising that by the time Christ comes He is coming for a bride without blemish.

Because of the blood of Jesus….. you live a constant repenting life, even by the time Christ comes, you are going to be forgiven. But you sinned yesterday! Yes but I repented. The critical thing is you need to live a life where you are conscious of sin. As soon as the Holy Spirit points out something wrong please remember the blood of Jesus is available to forgive you. Not just that first time you got saved but even later. Now He has reconciled you and that's an important thing, by Christ's physical body. To present you holy in his sight. His desire is that you will live holy, not in people's sight, people will still think you are unholy because of what you did yesterday.

It is true what you did was wrong but once He has forgiven you, He says He takes our sins as far as east is from west. So when we say we are holy, it is not because we have never sinned but because our sins have been forgiven. So then we can say we have no blemish, we have no accusation because His blood has covered them .

 

Day 4

Col 1:23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.NIV

Verse twenty three is pretty frightening. In other words, all I the blessing in this chapter are not for starters but for finishers. I know our Kenyan boys and girls did wonderful thing in Olympics. All of us who are Kenyans were proud. But nobody got a prize who started. Only those who finished.

And you need to be aware of that. Some of us are so proud about how long ago we got saved. I got saved in the year 1942 they say. You know, those people who got saved in 1942, most are aged and dying…what matters is are the y saved at death bed .. But there are people so proud about the date they were saved until they read verse twenty three. You only have benefits if you continue, are you reading that in verse twenty three….. If you continue. It is not enough to start Christianity. You know there are people who say, once saved always saved. So because you are saved now you can sin with everybody's husband. My brother, my sister please understand the blessings of God is only if you continue. That's what the verse is saying… if you continue in your faith established and firm. If you continue is a very important thing. It is the gospel that you heard initially and the gospel that you heard has been proclaimed to every creature and which Paul is a minister of it

 

Day 5

Col 1:25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness- 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. NIV

That is the God we believe in. the all powerful God. The omniscient God. In Jesus Christ is the image of God the Father.. You say in him is the fullness of God so that what we see in Christ we don't have to look any further. The gospels tell us who God is and we are not supposed to look any further. May we know what privilege we have when we know this . May the Bible become something we desire to read. That it will keep us reminded of who He really is. So that we don't end up with a god created in our own image. That we may believe in God that is the creator, the creator of heaven and earth, the creator of the universe. We may repent our sins of making Him small…..the songwriter says, we have made you too small, ooh Lord help us to know we are not supposed to make you. We are supposed to worship you.

May we truly repent of the way we have been believing you, the way we have been dealing with you and fully surrender to your control.

 

Day 6

Col 1:25-27 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness.

Two sons look at their father differently ..one he is rich and the other ..he is poor .one thinks he Will not be able to cope with school fees , and lives in fear of what will happen. But the other one looks at the father and says, aah papa which high school can't he pay? So the guy reads completely sure that the trouble is him passing but as long as he passes, the father is able to pay for any high school. Can you see the two lives?

Same father, but the two of them are living totally different lives. And you know that happens to be really the relationship between many Christians and God . They come from the same church but depending on how they know their God, they can live two totally different lives. As listen to Colossians, I think we need to keep asking ourselves who is God to us and how do we relate with him? Might you be the one who assumes that your God is very poor and because He is poor you therefore don't bother asking him for much.

Some of us have the impression that God may be rich but He doesn't want his children to live rich. For you is not that you think that God is poor but you think he has determined the way you live. you hear testimonies people saying …… I received the Lord, He is my personal savior, I am enduring this walk of the Lord and one day I will go to heaven.

So your life is a life of endurance. But you know others are enjoying their lives when you are enduring your life.

We are emphasizing these weeks, the God we believe in is a God who is able to make you enjoy. In other words you don't have to endure you can enjoy. And that's it. We have talked about Christ as a redeemer. He has rescued us from the life of endurance in order for us to have a life of joy.

We also looked at ourselves as Africans and asked what's the difference between Christ's message being preached to us and and if it had not reached us .. Then we looked at the issue of, 'what do we become when we become redeemed?'. we spent quite a bit of time just looking at the things Paul was thanking God for the Colossians. Paul then he takes a bit of time saying… but you haven't really reached the end……there are these other things I am praying about.

If you add what has happened and the ones he is praying for, you get the picture of what you become when Christ redeems you.

 

Day 7

Col 1:28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. NIV

we have asked ourselves,' who is God to you? Who is Jesus to you? '.. We emphasized the fact that whereas in the beginning God created man in his own image, we said now man has created God in his own image. Let me repeat, originally God created man in his own image, then somewhere along the way, we have assume we become God ourselves, and can create God in our own image. If you can lie you think God can also lie. If sometimes you don't keep your word, you think God also cannot keep your word. And if you think sometimes you can live a double life and nobody can ever discover, you assume God cannot discover. you know for some people ,the god they believe in, the one they have created for themselves, is deaf and is dumb and is blind.

Now, that's why they can actually be Christians, living a life that is totally rotten and on Sunday they are here looking sanctimonious.. Because the god they believe in is a blind god. He can't see what they were doing with a ndogondogo or a bigbig concubine the previous weekend. He simply can't see.

Some people told me they heard me preaching when they were young form ones in high school. Now they are grown ups, they are people with teenage children.. when I heard that one of them is living double life, one person in church and a totally different life with two families that do not know of the existence of each other.

And sure enough when I booked an appointment with the person he still gave me a wonderful testimony. … so totally in the Lord with things God is doing and many miracles. I just sat there in that lunch just listening and said, waah I can't even come to that level about the things God is doing through this life. But remember I also know the other story.

And I said, what do you think that man thinks of God? They must be thinking of a god who is blind, who cannot see. Because even if he lies to me, remember God is there with us as we are taking that lunch. Isn't it? But he doesn't believe God is there. What I am trying to get you to understand is, there are people who believe in a deaf god so he cannot hear what you are saying, and there are people who believe in a blind god who cannot see what you are doing.

That god is not worth believing. Surely, why bother believing in a god, if that's what your god is. That's a helpless god. He requires your foreign aid. Isn't it? So why believe him? You need to come back and find out, who is God?

The book of Colossians chapter two, answers your query as to who god is as seen in Christ, you just see Jesus described by Paul in such superlatives that you say, waah if that's our God, then we should live enjoying not enduring.