Be Still And Know

Colossians 3:14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. Robert Browning, the poet, wrote: “Take away love and our earth is a tomb.” It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of love. It isn’t merely one more excellent virtue which we need to acquire – it’s essential because without it no family, organisation or church can thrive. Paul encouraged his readers to put on the clothing of love, and just like any other clothing, we need to head into each day ensuring that it is in place. The Greek word for love in this verse is ‘agape’. This is the love you have for people regardless of how they feel about you. It’s the kind of love which just can’t stop loving. It’s so committed to loving that it doesn’t give up when the going gets tough and the opposition is fierce. It is, of course, the kind of love that God first showed to us. When John wrote his first letter, he pointed to Jesus as being the supreme expression of God’s love. Unfortunately, the word love ea

Colossians 3:13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Any happy and harmonious community relies upon forgiveness. It isn’t an optional extra but an absolute necessity. However, it is also incredibly hard work, so we need to reflect very carefully upon it. We step on one another’s toes very easily. We often do it without meaning to, in complete innocence. We say or do things that we think are obviously right, but which cause hurt and unhappiness to others. And, by the same token, people step on our toes and hurt us unintentionally. The only way of coping with this inevitable part of community life is to forgive. God calls us to live with an attitude of forgiveness that graciously and lovingly moves on from the hurt without drawing attention to it. It is relatively easy to forgive those who unintentionally hurt you, but what do you do when someone has deliberately gone out of their way to cause you harm? Surel

Colossians 3:11 In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us. Every society is full of divisions, but Paul’s world was sharply and deeply divided far beyond anything we know today. The biggest divide of all was between Jew and Gentile. Jews were the chosen people and Gentiles were the outsiders. The Jews would pray a daily prayer thanking God that they were not Gentiles. There was deep suspicion, and even hatred, between Jews and Gentiles and it focused on male circumcision, which was the physical evidence of the distinction. Meanwhile, Greeks looked down on anyone who didn’t speak Greek, and there was a massive difference between those who were slaves and those who were free. In ancient law, slaves were not even classified as human beings. They were simply possessions or living tools with no rights of their own. A master could thrash, maim or even kill his slaves

Colossians 3:10 Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. I wonder what your goals are for your life. Perhaps they focus on your family, your job or your sport. You may want to become better at what you do and more fulfilled in your life. In this verse we hear what God’s aim is for our lives, and isn’t it amazing? His aim is that we should become like him. Wow! He, the creator of the world, wants us to resemble him. In Genesis 1:27, we read that God made us in his image. From the very beginning, humankind had a resemblance to God, but sadly, through sin, that image became distorted. However, through our relationship with Christ, God wants to restore his image in us. I am sure we are all aware of our shortcomings, so the thought of resembling God sounds incredible, but that is precisely what God wants for our lives. Clearly, we are never going to resemble God through our own effort. The only way it can happen is through us letting the Holy Spirit take ov

Colossians 3:2-3 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. Paul’s message was a matter of life and death. In the previous chapter, he referred to baptism as being an act of burial (Colossians 2:12). Through baptism, one life comes to an end and another one, focused on Christ, begins. That’s why Paul encouraged his readers to make sure their primary focus was on heaven and not on the things of earth. Many of us know the description of someone being ‘so heavenly-minded that they are of no earthly use’. Paul would absolutely disagree with that, believing that the person who was focused on heaven would be of the greatest possible use on earth. Paul had a very clear idea of the dangers of allowing our earthly, sinful nature to be in the driving seat. He told his readers to put to death sexual immorality, impurity, lust and evil desires, and warned them against greed. He observed that a greedy person was an idolater, wor

Colossians 2:16-17 Don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. Throughout history, religious people have been famous for their rules and regulations. We see it particularly clearly with the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. They lived meticulously according not only to the law of Moses but also to layers of other regulations which had been introduced by the rabbis. It isn’t surprising that in the early Church, one of the greatest challenges came from those who wanted to impose complicated regulations upon the new Christians. These came from many places, particularly from the Gnostics, whose religion was built upon complicated rules about eating and drinking and the observance of special days. Paul was not saying that all rules were bad. A well-ordered family, church or society will only work smoothly if there are rules. Paul’s conc

Colossians 2:14-15 [Christ] cancelled 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. The cross stood right at the centre of Paul’s understanding of the good news. Put simply, if you want to understand Jesus, you have to see him through the lens of the cross. John Stott, in his book [itals]The Cross of Christ[end itals], summed this up when he wrote: “There is then, it is safe to say, no Christianity without the cross. If the cross is not central to our religion, ours is not the religion of Jesus.” For this reason, Paul focused his preaching on the cross even though he was fully aware that the message didn’t always go down well. Jews found it a stumbling block because the law of Moses declared that anyone who hung from a tree was cursed. Meanwhile, non-Jews just found the idea of someone dying on a cross completely foolish. How could anyone find anyt

Colossians 2:8-9 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. Paul didn’t believe in beating around the bush! He was so convinced that Christ was the complete answer to the human predicament that he saw every other philosophy as a waste of time. That didn’t mean he was unwilling to spend time listening to people with other beliefs. He simply didn’t believe that they had anything to offer when compared with Christ. When Paul visited Athens, he spent a great deal of time speaking with the philosophers and gladly accepted an invitation to address the Areopagus, which was the forum where the Greeks held debates. He sensitively referred to their own poets and thinkers, but his focus was always to proclaim Christ. It is the fact that Jesus was both fully man and fully God which marks him apart from other great teachers.

Colossians 1:22-23 You are holy and blameless as you stand before [Christ] without a single fault. But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. What Christ has done for us is absolutely amazing. Failed and sinful as we are, he has totally forgiven us and made us right with God. He has made it possible for us to stand before him, holy and blameless and without fault. But that doesn’t mean we can now take it easy and do what we want. We need to stand firm in our faith and ensure we don’t slip away from the truth. In my experience, very few people who drift away from Christian faith do so because they suddenly disbelieve it. What normally happens is that they become distracted and busy with other things. Gradually, their work, family, sport or hobby claims their attention and they find it inconvenient to attend worship. Sometimes they move house and find it difficult to find another church in which they feel

Colossians 1:15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. Most people have good things to say about Jesus. They like that he welcomed every kind of person; they admire that he was willing to stand up to the religious rulers of his time; they enjoy that he told compelling, down-to-earth stories and went out of his way to get alongside people; and they value how full of love he was. The apostle Paul, however, goes far beyond these kind comments. For Paul, Jesus showed the world exactly what God was like. Just as we can look at a coin and see what the sovereign looks like, so too by looking at Jesus we can see precisely what God is like. We don’t know exactly what Paul’s opponents were teaching, but it seems to have been a combination of Jewish and Greek thought. Paul’s answer was to give them the most magnificent and clear description of Jesus: he is not only the one who existed before anything was created, but is now the one wh

Colossians 1:13-14 [God] has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. Paul was absolutely clear that when someone becomes a Christian, their whole life changes completely. We move to a new country! The kingdom of darkness is now behind us and we have entered the kingdom of light with Jesus Christ standing at the centre of it. In that new country, we experience freedom for the first time in our life, having been set free from all those things that conspire to enslave us. Slavery was an everyday part of Roman society. Paul often spoke of life before becoming a Christian as being like a form of spiritual slavery. Without Christ, we are slaves to our own selfish and ultimately destructive will, but through Christ, we can be set free. Under Roman law, it was possible for a slave to be freed. It was a process called manumission, and one of the ways of achieving it was for the slave to pay his master compensation

Colossians 1:11-12 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. Life can be incredibly tough. Paul often spoke of the challenges he had faced which involved rejection, betrayal, shipwrecks, imprisonment, beatings and much more. He also knew that the Colossian church was going through a difficult time and needed huge strength to keep going in a godly way. They needed to know how to endure and be patient when they were under extreme pressure. Most people who face attack will fight back, but Paul knew that this was not what God wanted. The word for patience used to be translated as ‘longsuffering’. Being patient is tough enough, but to be longsuffering is beyond all of us. The only way we can keep on being patient is with God’s help. He helps us to be kind towards people who are rude and obstructive. He shows us how to face rejection with love and understanding. He enabl

Colossians 1:9 We have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Recently, I heard someone say that the situation they were facing was so desperate that all they could do was pray about it. They made it sound as if their circumstances were so hopeless that they were willing to grasp at any option, however daft. We need to be clear that the apostle Paul saw prayer in a completely different way. For him, prayer was not the last resort but the first. He prayed for the people in Colossae because, even though he didn’t know them, he cared about them and longed that they would thrive as Christians in a tough environment. Paul’s prayer for the Colossian Christians was that they would know God’s will. That always needs to be at the heart of our prayers. Prayer is never our opportunity to tell God what we think is best, or to ask him to implement the decisions we have made. Because God is all

Colossians 1:6 This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace. Following Christ always involves radical change. James and John had to leave their boats and their fishing nets and follow Jesus. Zacchaeus, the tax collector, had to make things right with all the people he had defrauded. And Saul, the devout Jew who was determined to stamp out the Church, changed his name and his whole direction of life, becoming Jesus’ most passionate ambassador. Christ meets us as individuals, so the changes that take place in our lives will be unique. As a teenager, I heard many amazing testimonies from people who had been dramatically changed by Christ. I heard about people who had been on hard drugs for years and who had found new life and liberty in their newfound faith. I listened to people who had pursued a life of crime and then met C

Colossians 1:4-5 We have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. Having hope is incredibly important. Dostoevsky, the famous writer, said: “To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness.” Above the entrance to Dante’s hell was the inscription: “Leave behind all hope, you who enter here.” The Colossian church were so confident of the future that God had for them that they were full of hope, and that inspired both their faith in Christ and their love for their Christian brothers and sisters. It was like an engine inside them producing nothing but blessing. Human life is often characterised by hopelessness. In 1850, Bishop Wilberforce said: “I dare not marry for the future is so dark and unsettled.” In 1851, the Duke of Wellington said: “I thank God I shall be spared from seeing the consummation of ruin that is gathering about us.” And, the following year, the Conservative polit

Matthew 28:8-9 The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message. And as they went, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they ran to him, grasped his feet, and worshiped him. The women who found the empty tomb on the first Easter Sunday morning must have experienced a riot of emotions. They had got up early to anoint the body of Jesus because this was the first opportunity to do so after the sabbath. Their astonishment that the stone of the tomb had been rolled away was compounded by meeting an angel whose face shone like lightning and whose clothing was as white as snow. The angel informed them that Jesus had risen from the dead, just as he had promised, and told them to go and tell the disciples. As they ran off, Matthew records that they were very frightened but also filled with great joy. Then, amid this tumult of emotions, they suddenly met Jesus himself. The women could not keep the amazing news of

Matthew 27:57-60 As evening approached, Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea who had become a follower of Jesus, went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. And Pilate issued an order to release it to him. Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a long sheet of clean linen cloth. He placed it in his own new tomb, which had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance and left. We know very little about Joseph of Arimathea. The Gospel of Mark tells us that he was an honoured member of the high council of the Jews, and that he was waiting for the kingdom of God to come. The Gospel of Luke comments that he was a good and righteous man, and the Gospel of John informs us that he was a secret disciple of Jesus because he feared the Jewish leaders. That’s all we know. However, this brief account of him going to Pilate asking for the body of Jesus reveals that he was a man of exceptional courage. This initiative could easily have exposed him to enormous risk both from the Romans and the

Matthew 27:54 The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened. They said, “This man truly was the Son of God!” When Jesus died, the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom and there was a great earthquake. It’s no wonder that the soldiers, tough as they were, were terrified. We need to be very grateful to the Gospel writers for recording so much of what took place, but there is so much more that we would love to know. I find it fascinating that the Gospel writers tell us nothing of the response of the religious people. We know that some of the Jewish leaders were very sympathetic to Jesus. I wonder what Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea thought. And what about the disciples? Wouldn’t it be fascinating to know what their reactions were on this most traumatic of days? Matthew only tells us about the reaction of one group of people. We would hardly have expected to hear any comment from them, because they w

Matthew 26:26 As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it, for this is my body.” The Old Testament prophets frequently communicated through actions, proclaiming their messages both clearly and unforgettably. They are often called acted parables. In the Gospels, we see Jesus doing exactly the same thing. On Palm Sunday, his entry into Jerusalem on a donkey powerfully declared that he was both a king and a man of peace. Then, on the night before his crucifixion, Jesus shared the Passover meal with his disciples and declared while breaking bread that it represents his broken body. The Passover meal is an annual opportunity for Jews to revisit the people of Israel’s miraculous liberation from Egypt. That historic event proved that God is a God of salvation. He is able to do things which are humanly impossible. During the Last Supper, Jesus stood before his disciples as the Saviour of the World. The disciples h

Matthew 26:7 While [Jesus] was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume and poured it over his head. Things were hotting up. Jesus had launched a tirade against the religious leaders and they were now absolutely committed to seeing him put to death. We learn that they had a secret meeting at the home of the High Priest, Caiaphas, in order to plan this. Amid all of this ferment, we go to a home in the village of Bethany and meet a woman performing the most amazing act of devotion to Jesus. At the time, it was quite usual for a Jewish woman to carry a little alabaster jar of precious perfume around her neck. This perfume could be incredibly valuable, and in the Gospels of Mark and John, we are told that it was worth 300 denarii. That would be about a year’s earnings! It was a phenomenal act of devotion, and it is unsurprising that the disciples were shocked by what she did. They saw it as a terrible waste and reflected that the money could have been used to help the poor. B