PODCAST
Dead to the World
June 13th, 2013
Colossians 2:16-23
If we are to become the persons God created us to be, the persons we imagine we are must “die.”
Paul was a zealous, self-righteous persecutor of the followers of the crucified Messiah when he met the risen Christ on the Damascus Road (Galatians 1:13-17; Philippians 3:4-6). The old Paul “died” when he realized he, too, was a sinner, just like the pagans he had despised.
“Dead” with Christ, Paul no longer cared about the opinions of his peers. For all practical purposes, he and the world were “dead” to one another (Galatians 6:14; 2:20). The people, ideas, and systems that resisted God’s new creation no longer mattered. So he accepted God’s call to preach the gospel to pagans–what God had created him to do (1:15).
The legal regulations that once maintained strict separation between Jews and non-Jews had been revoked in the cross of Christ. So Paul urged pagan converts not to imagine they could become better Christians by adopting Jewish customs: “These are a shadow . . . ; the reality, however, is found in Christ” (Colossians 2:17).
Author: George Lyons
June 14th, 2013 at 12:06 am
Spiritual death gives way to our fleshly desires (not forsaking our earthly needs) for God’s Will.
As with physical death, spiritual death to one’s self can happen immediately; or, it may take a slow agonizing guilt trip. In the later, we walk the way of the world suppressing that our walk doesn’t match up to our thoughts or our heart. Thus, in ignoring the nudges of the Holy Spirit, our heart becomes harden and the world sees hypocrisy while we may need to see a psychologist,