Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – I am deliberately building my life in and on Jesus, my personal experiences and encounters with him.
Colossians 2:6-9 NLT
[6] And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. [7] Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. [8] 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. [9] For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.
Observation
We all build on lives on something. It’s the ways as taught by someone, some philosophy, some social construct, some ism, or some power in the spiritual realm. Whether we can even articulate the who or what, we are building on something. The real question is – the ‘what’ you are building your life on, is it reliable? Does it have credibility? Where is it leading you?
Jesus didn’t just come to save humanity he came to form a new way of being human. He came to bring a revelation of God in a form we could comprehend – God with flesh, human. He was “the fullness of God in a human body,” so we can know what God is like. And he came to invite us into an intimate, uninterrupted relationship with God, for we are made in his image and only from personal experience and encounter is his image restored in me.
The way of Jesus is firstly you are right with God, not by good performance on your side but completely as a free gift of forgiveness and love. From being right you have presence with him, from presence you discover your true self, from this discovery of experience you reflect your true divine-human self back into the world, from this reflection heaven invades and permeates earth. Righteousness leads to intimacy, leads to a transformed self, and leads to a new world. This is the way of the kingdom of God.
“Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him.” This is not intellectual learning of some philosophy, it’s not following the writings of some departed someone, this is personal and intimate and alive knowing. It’s not learn and do, it’s experience and be transformed. We so quickly change what we believe when our beliefs don’t serve us well, but you can’t change an experience, it changes you. God writes his ways on my heart from my personal interaction and experience with him. I’m not taught by man, I am transformed by a personal encounter, this is supernatural and mystical. It’s “into him” and “in him.” I don’t have my head in the books, I am held in his embrace. It’s from this posture, this being present to his presence, that my faith becomes strong, not my intellectual comprehension but the deeper power of a knowing of the heart. And from here I live my life in constant celebration. I can’t help it.
Application
I will be aware of what I am building my life upon. I will be aware that I am following something and will make the assessment of credibility. I will live present to the presence of God, transformed by experience, reflecting it through my life. I will become the new humanity of God, shaped in his likeness and image, not through hard disciplined work, but through the beauty of encounter and experience. I will live a mystical supernatural life of being present to him. Is there really any other way to be Christian?
Response
Thank you that you make me right so I can be made right. Righteousness leads to true self-rightness. When I am right with you I become me. Thank you that more than anything you invite me to turn up. Far from a load of musts and laws and burdens, you just invite me into love. For from love I become love and love fulfils all your plans for humanity from the outset. I love this life being built by you, on you, in you.
Meditation
Meditate – Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him.
Consider:
What are you shaping your life upon? What shapes your thoughts and decisions?
Do you know the experience of his presence and being transformed in his presence?
JOURNEY DEEPER