Okay, I'll admit it, I slept in from church this past Sunday. My roommate made muffins and we talked for a bit before another roommate went to work. After breakfast and coffee, I opened my Bible to Colossians and began reading. I started reading with the intent to "make up" for missing church but I can say that I came away with something much more. (Side note, go and grab your Bible and read Colossians 1:1-14 real quick.)
In the beginning of chapter one of Colossians, Paul is writing to the believers about thanksgiving and prayer for spiritual growth. Paul says that he is thankful for their love in the Spirit and that he hopes they continue to bear fruit and grow in the knowledge of The Lord.
I think bearing fruit means to love others to win them to Christ. If we love Jesus and abide in His Word, bearing fruit should be a natural result of our life. Based off these scriptures, growing in the knowledge of Christ is something that we should strive for and even expect. We can't get to know Jesus more when we don't open up the scriptures He inspired.
My favorite part of doing a devotion is figuring out how it applies to my life. From the verses, you understand that we should always have thanksgiving and never stop praying for each other since we get to celebrate Jesus's defeat of death. In verse 11, it says that God gives you strength from Him so you can continue to do things for Him.
My favorite verse from this passage is verse 13 that says, "He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves." WOAH, let's go read that again. Transferring something doesn't require anything from us. He literally picked up us from darkness and carried us into the light. We didn't do anything to deserve that. We didn't even have to work and do anything because Jesus did the "transferring." When you love someone, a natural reaction is to love and enjoy what that person loves. So, because we are in the kingdom of the Son that God loves, God then loves us! There is free love from The Father because of Jesus' death on the cross.
He defeated death, brought us from darkness, and now we get to rejoice in the light of the kingdom of love with Jesus.
