Rescue
This week is on Colossians 1:13-14:
These verses are in a letter from Paul to the Colossian church. He encourages the church to live lives worthy and pleasing to God and then shares this one-liner that perfectly describes how great God has been to us. It is truth.
God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness. We are no longer held captive by our sin, and by evil spiritual forces. We are not limited by sickness or weakness or dimwittedness. Our past does not dictate our future. The dominion of darkness is not something we're under anymore, any more than a victim of human trafficking is under the authority and control of her pimp. He may try to find her, but once she's rescued, she's free and safe.
A rescue is a violent thing, usually. Someone is pulled from raging waters. Men with body armor and guns kick down a door and kill all who stand in their way to bring someone home. A helicopter comes and finds a lost person in the wilderness and people climb down and pull them in to fly them to safety. We haven't just been invited to leave the dominion of darkness. God hasn't just filed paperwork to ask the dominion of darkness' permission to allow him to have access to us. God came and took us, rescuing us from what we otherwise would have spent the rest of eternity under.
God has brought us into Jesus' kingdom. Undefeated Jesus. King of kings, Lord of lords Jesus. God loves those in that kingdom. It is a safe place, well guarded into eternity. The people there are chosen by God as his own. We live under that kingdom, under his rule, not the rule of darkness.
We have redemption in His kingdom. That means that we have value, even if we didn't have it at first. We are made new. We are precious items God wants to keep. Not junk.
We also have the forgiveness of sins. That means no debt-collectors calling in eternity! Nobody showing up on our spiritual doorstep with an arrest warrant for what we did last night or fifty years ago. Jesus paid our debts in his blood. We are free and clear, same credit rating and clean record as his.
These are important things we have to remind ourselves of, so it's cool that they can fit in a couple verses. Our sins are forgiven. All of our sin. We have been redeemed, so we have value. We are loved by God himself, who chose us. We are living in a new eternal world now, free of the darkness we used to be ensnared in. This all came about through bloodshed, and action, and Jesus coming from the kingdom of heaven to rescue us from where we were.
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
These verses are in a letter from Paul to the Colossian church. He encourages the church to live lives worthy and pleasing to God and then shares this one-liner that perfectly describes how great God has been to us. It is truth.
God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness. We are no longer held captive by our sin, and by evil spiritual forces. We are not limited by sickness or weakness or dimwittedness. Our past does not dictate our future. The dominion of darkness is not something we're under anymore, any more than a victim of human trafficking is under the authority and control of her pimp. He may try to find her, but once she's rescued, she's free and safe.
A rescue is a violent thing, usually. Someone is pulled from raging waters. Men with body armor and guns kick down a door and kill all who stand in their way to bring someone home. A helicopter comes and finds a lost person in the wilderness and people climb down and pull them in to fly them to safety. We haven't just been invited to leave the dominion of darkness. God hasn't just filed paperwork to ask the dominion of darkness' permission to allow him to have access to us. God came and took us, rescuing us from what we otherwise would have spent the rest of eternity under.
God has brought us into Jesus' kingdom. Undefeated Jesus. King of kings, Lord of lords Jesus. God loves those in that kingdom. It is a safe place, well guarded into eternity. The people there are chosen by God as his own. We live under that kingdom, under his rule, not the rule of darkness.
We have redemption in His kingdom. That means that we have value, even if we didn't have it at first. We are made new. We are precious items God wants to keep. Not junk.
We also have the forgiveness of sins. That means no debt-collectors calling in eternity! Nobody showing up on our spiritual doorstep with an arrest warrant for what we did last night or fifty years ago. Jesus paid our debts in his blood. We are free and clear, same credit rating and clean record as his.
These are important things we have to remind ourselves of, so it's cool that they can fit in a couple verses. Our sins are forgiven. All of our sin. We have been redeemed, so we have value. We are loved by God himself, who chose us. We are living in a new eternal world now, free of the darkness we used to be ensnared in. This all came about through bloodshed, and action, and Jesus coming from the kingdom of heaven to rescue us from where we were.
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