Feeding the Sheep - Living the New Life


"Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory."
-Apostle Paul, 1st century
Colossians 3:1-4

[This is the 16th message of this series]

This lesson is intended for mature believers (or adulting believers). For a more orderly study, please go through all the previous messages first, if you haven't yet.

The Apostle Paul gave a rundown on how to know if we are living the new life we received as a gift from God.

Paul wrote it down in his letter to the first church in the City of Colossae in the 1st century.

Colossians 3

[This will be the 1st of a series within a series]

To summarize, he told them that we ought to be staying away from earthly things:

1. Impurity
2. Evil desires
3. Greed (worship of the things of this world)
4. Malicious behavior - anger, rage, slander, dirty language
5. Lying

We ought to be replacing these with heavenly things:

1. Mercy - compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience
2. Forgiveness
3. Love - fostering harmony
4. Peace (as one body, one church)
5. Gratitude

And by filling our day by:

1. Teaching others
2. Singing (an attitude of gratitude) and
3. Doing everything for Christ

Now he told them "the what" we ought to be doing. But he didn't actually give a powerpoint presentation or a seminar on "how" to do it.

Adulting

This new life in Christ is a life we live daily, some days we may have it down, others we fall flat on our faces. But like Peter and the rest of the first disciples of Christ, we stand back up, seek a time of refreshing and start the next day with renewed hope, mercy and the expectation that day by day, we are able to be more and more like Christ and less and less like our old life.





Comments