Posts with the category “12-colossians”

The Debt Is Gone — Stop Trying to Pay It Colossians 2:14 CSB - He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. Every commandment we ever broke stood as a witness against us, and the full weight of that legal debt was something we could never repay — but Jesus took the entire certificate of debt, with every obligation and accusation it contained, and nailed it to the cross as a public declaration of "paid in full." He did not destroy the Law but fulfilled every righteous demand it contained, satisfying completely what we could never satisfy on our own. The result is no more guilt, no more striving, no more condemnation — not because the debt was overlooked but because it was fully and finally settled by the only One who could pay it. We are now called to live not in lawlessness but in the liberty of grace — not out of fear that the bill might still be outstanding, but out of love for the One who canceled it completely.   Read More

From Alienated Enemy to Holy, Faultless, and Blameless Colossians 1:21-22 CSB - Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds as expressed in your evil actions. But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him. We were once alienated from God — transferred to another owner, hostile in our minds, and separated by our sin with no way to repair the relationship on our own. But through Christ's physical death on the cross, reconciliation has come, and with it a transformed identity described in three permanent and ongoing realities: holy, faultless, and blameless — not because of what we are by nature but because of what the cross has made us. These are not descriptions of sinless perfection but of a completed legal standing before God, who no longer sees our sin but sees us clothed in the righteousness of His Son. We were once enemies, but we have been bought back — and now we are called to walk in that reconciled identity every day, living not as what we were but as what grace has declared us to be.  Read More