Daily Devotions – The Extent of Grace

Daily Devotions – The Extent of Grace

 

Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart: 

 

Colossians 3:5-11  (NIV)
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

 

Yet again we find a list of admonitions.  I could probably add a couple dozen to the list from my own life.  Yet, if we focus too much on the negative, we miss the promise!  Verse 9 shows us that all these activities can hurt the community, and the community of believers matters to God.  So, we are encouraged to put away these hurtful, earthly things.  We are reminded that we have been given new life in Christ.  The renewing grace and forgiveness of God reshape us and those around us.  Today, consider the community you find yourself in.  Praise God that, as he forgives and restores you, he does the same to those around you.