Walking With Christ

Colossians 1:26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.(ESV)

To truly know something is to teach it. I don’t think what I’m doing here truly qualifies since I’m merely regurgitating what I learn in my own words. I don’t profess to truly understand any of this. I do, however, promise to be wrong on a fair number of occasions. If what I’m doing here helps others to learn something along the way, then it serves the purposes of the kingdom and brings glory to God.

People often ask why God doesn’t just broadly announce His truth and His plan. They say, “If only God would do THIS then I would believe.” God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, but they decided to walk a different path. God spoke with Moses face to face as one friend to another, but the children of Israel were scared of that. The children of Israel were meant to be led directly by God in the promised land, but they demanded a king to create a buffer between them and God. Time and time again people have been given the chance to speak with or walk directly with God, and each time we, as a species, decide to add more layers of separation between us and God.

Our nature is to try to turn our relationship with God into a cosmic vending machine where we pick and choose what we want to come out when we put in the payment of our prayers and worship. It doesn’t work that way. I once knew a lady who was praying for a fix to her financial woes when she would go to the casino every weekend and lose a couple of hundred dollars. We often want God to fix what we perceive to be the problem while completely denying the root issue. If God were to simply answer our prayers and give us exactly what we asked for, it would make our lives significantly worse. We know not what we do, as Jesus said on the cross.

This ties back to the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink”. This really ties in with the whole free will subject and the notion that true love cannot be forced. It can be encouraged, but both parties have to know without any doubt that there is more than one option. How does this tie in to the verse today? God walked with Adam and Eve, but He knew they would fall short in the garden. He knew that sin, doubt, guilt, and shame would cause us to try to hide from Him and His truth. He wants us to have a relationship with Him, but that involves knowing the truth. Sin separates us from Him, but He made a way through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of His only son, Jesus Christ, for us to be close to Him once more.

Here’s the twist, if I tell you something, you have two options. You can believe me or not. If you choose to not believe me then that’s the end. If you choose to believe me then you have to verify what you’ve been told. Telling someone something does not mean they will just believe it. For someone to fully and truly believe something, it has to become a part of who they are. If they think it was their idea or their conclusion then a lot of people would be willing to die for that belief even if it’s wrong. Until we internalize the belief in and trust of the word of God, it’s just words on a page that have no life or control. Once we have made those words a part of who we are and demand to know them as we know ourselves then the words on the page come to life as we come to new life. When we invite the word of God (Jesus) into our hearts, it’s as if we get a full blood transfusion and we become something new. From that point on, we owe it to our new selves to fully explore our potential and seek the truth of the new self.

Read the word and spend some time getting to know yourself. You might be surprised to find out who you really are.