Our Alaska Division theme for this program year is "Better Together" focussing on unity, supporting one another, and operating the body of the church God desires. Here are some devotional thoughts for your own consideration or use as a call to worship in your Corps this Holy season. Just my thoughts from my scripture meditation. Please use, change, alter as you see fit and meditate on the Word today.
For December 5
For December 5
Today we celebrate the 2nd Sunday of Advent and recall not just Christ’s coming long ago, but look forward to His coming again. Let’s consider how best to enter worship today as we come before our Lord.
Today’s “Better Together” scripture focus is found in Colossians 2:2-3.
Paul wrote to the region of Colossi where many were being led astray by teaching that said if you only learned the right thing, if you knew the right secrets, if you studied enough, discovered enough, or spiritually tapped into a level of spiritual knowledge, then you could find God, or be like God, or as some believe today even become God for yourself. We know Paul spoke directly to a groups desire to find the secret knowledge of the things of God.
Paul then gives them the so-called “secret” to the knowledge of God. Paul knew that the answer wasn’t found by searching for enough spiritual knowledge to find God, but instead that if they found Jesus Christ, they will have found everything.
Paul writes… Colossians 2:2-3 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
To truly find all God has for us doesn’t require that we take a solitary “monk-like” trek to find a mystical level of spiritual enlightenment. God reminds us today that to know God Himself we must simply be united in love with Christ Himself.
This Christmas let’s not seek to “act” united or do things for Christmas like we think a church should, instead we should individually and corporately stay in tune with Jesus, that alone will draw us close to God.
A.W. Tozer, in his book, The Pursuit of God, tells us how to gain greater unity. He wrote, "Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers [meeting] together, each one looking … to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become ‘unity conscious’ and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship."
Colossians 2:2-3 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
With us all simply seeking an encounter with Jesus, we are “Better Together.”
---Live holy, preach Jesus!
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