Today’s chapter is Colossians 3

Tom writes:

Since we have been raised with Christ.... Hold on a second, let’s just take that in. As far as I am aware none of the Colossian church were wrapped in strips of linen and laid in the tomb with Jesus and, as far as I am aware, there was only one bloke in the garden who Mary thought was the gardener. Only Christ was raised, only Christ appeared to the disciples and showed them his wounds. So how can Paul say the Colossians have been raised with Christ and, more than that - how can we read this and take from it that we also have been raised with Christ? One day my grandfather discovered he was at war with Germany. My grandfather didn’t declare war and he didn’t do anything to bring about the war but he got carried along by the decision of his Prime Minister. One day I was raised with Christ. I didn’t beat death and I didn’t do anything to bring about my resurrection but I got carried along by the redemptive resurrection of Prime Minister Jesus. Jesus rose from the dead and when I made him my king I became part of this growing band of barbarians, Scythians, slaves and free who have been raised from the dead along with him. This has enormous implications. Just like the “at war” version of my grandfather was different from the “at peace” one - he travelled from Yorkshire to India and from being a gas man to leading a band of men. His environment and his climate and his sustenance all were transformed. In the same way the “raised” version of you is different from the previous “worldly” version of you. Your environment has changed… albeit it in more “hidden” ways than it did for my grandad. So will you allow the scriptures and the Spirit to wake you up to this hidden but utterly real change?

Imagine yourself - all that you were - dead in your act of repentance. Then imagine yourself raised as a citizen of heaven; a renewed version of you keeping all the good bits, with gentleness and humility poured all over you by God. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what the furniture is like in this new place; what the culture is like, what we feed on and what we celebrate. Read about that life in the New Testament - see the gospels and Acts as windows into the kind of life that the resurrected you can now live. Let them set the vision for your life. Teach and counsel others that this is the Way. Give thanks to God for this whole realm now being available to us and press into together becoming a community of perfect harmony resurrected by God and waiting for the fulness of resurrection to be revealed by Jesus on his Day.

Question for reflection

How has being raised with Christ changed your life?

Colossians 3 - Monday 22nd July