Inspiration for your journey to God!

Month: January 2017 (Page 1 of 3)

Colossians 3:5-16: Renunciation of Vice

Colossians

Renunciation of Vice

Colossians 3:5-16 reads as follows:

Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:  immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry.  Because of these the wrath of God is coming upon the disobedient.  By these you too once conducted yourselves, when you lived in that way.  But now you must put them all away:  anger, fury, malice, slander, and obscene language out of your mouths.  

Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator.  Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumscision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all.  

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another;  as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.  And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.  And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body.  And be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

I’ve read so many books on spirituality.  They all speak of and compare “old self” and “new self” or “false self” and “true self.”  They all refer to the “ego” and juxtapose it to the “heart.” They insinuate that the ego and the heart have nothing in common and that  they actually cannot “work well” together.  All of the books I’ve read on the subject often talk about transforming ourselves into something new.  Basically, letting go of the ego and operating from the heart, which is all love.

On this website, I often suggest the importance of transformation. That  it should be a goal we set for ourselves.  Why is it so important to me and many others?  I personally believe that it is transformation that will ultimately bring us the peace and happiness we seek.

I get the impression that a lot of this talk of EGO and HEART falls on deaf ears among Christians.   The perception is that it’s all New Age talk and babble.  But the reality is that this message can be found in our Bibles.  It is in the scripture verse I’ve cited above.

The Bible itself is telling us to “die to self” “be transformed.”  Forget the false self (stop lying to one another).  Have you ever thought about who  you REALLY are, who you really WANT to be, as opposed to who you NEED to be in order for others to like you?  Stop putting on a front, be yourself.  The Bible says “put on a new self.”  What does that mean?  It means one who grows continuously toward holiness; one who is transformed, not one who remains stagnant.

We’re told to operate from the heart – to put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  That is LOVE and THAT will bring us peace.  If we put on love in all areas of our lives, it will PERFECT all other virtues.  There is a sense of freedom that comes with putting on love and opening our hearts to all there is.

Have you noticed how much more difficult it is to harden our hearts?  And how much it actually hurts?  I have – it physically hurts.  Scripture tells us, if today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.  My translation:  If you believe, then you must love with an open heart.  That means everything and everyone ALL the time.  That’s hard, I know, but we must try.

How do we get to this place of love and peace?  This verse tells us how.  BE THANKFUL!  It’s so true.  We have to change our focus.  We all have issues in life that we have to deal with.  Of course, if we focus on those issues, it becomes difficult to remain happy.  If we focus on gratitude and on all that is right with our lives, it’s quite easy to remain in love.

Paul’s letter to the Colossians speaks to each one of us today and gives us great advice on how to be happy.  FOCUS ON GRATITUDE!  How can we NOT be at peace in that frame of mind?  God bless you!

Here is a paragraph from Vision and Viewpoint, by Joan Chittister which seems to elaborate on the importance of being transformed.  She mentions how our spirituality should be so deep….

Gandhi demands that our political involvement and our personal responses be based on a spirituality so deep, a spiritual attunement so constant, a spiritual vision so broad that no personal ambition, no selfish gains, no parochial interests corrupt the depth of our commitment nor the openness of our hearts. No seed ever sees the flower, Zen teaches. Those who follow Gandhi, may, like him, never know their successes. But like Gandhi, too, they will never really know defeat.  

To read the whole article, click here.

Jesus Anthem II

Jesus Anthem II

I Choose Jesus!

In my previous post, I shared a song entitled I Choose You by Sara Bareilles.  It appears to be a love song.   However,  I wanted to share my thoughts on how this song speaks to me in a religious context.  I hear it as “I Choose You Jesus!”

In this post, I will lay out each verse of the song.  After each verse I will insert a bullet with my thoughts on that verse.  So here it goes:

I Choose You by Sara Bareilles

Let the bough break, let it come down crashing, Let the sun fade out to a dark sky; I can’t say I’d even notice it was absent ’cause I could live by the light in your eyes.

  • My first thought on this is – the light of Christ shines in the darkness.  When you have Christ in your heart, darkness, however you may be experiencing it, will not win.  It is Christ that brings us peace, it is Christ that carries us through the difficult times.
  • My second thought is – the eyes are the windows to the soul. When people look into your eyes, what do they see?  What are you projecting?  Are you projecting the light of Christ?

I’ll unfold before you, would have strung together, the very first words of a lifelong love letter.

  • Unfolding – becoming your True Self and maintaining a strong, deep, personal and faithful relationship with Christ.

Chorus

Tell the world that we finally got it all right, I choose you.  I will become yours and you will become mine, I choose you.

  • Let the world know you are a follower of Christ.  As Scripture suggests, don’t hide your lamp under a bushel basket.   Let people closest to you know what a personal relationship with Christ means to you.  Christ humbled himself to share in our humanity so that we might share in His divinity.

There was a time when I would have believed them if they told me that you could not come true.  Just love’s illusion.  But then you found me and everything changed and I believe in something again.

  • There’s a time when we are distracted by the “way of the world.” We may even question the existence of God but He never gives up on us.  As a matter of fact, He is with us always.  There’s actually a Poem called The Hound of Heaven that speaks to this.  He is constantly working in us and eventually we GET IT! Everything changes – we believe, we surrender, we find PEACE!

My whole heart, will be yours forever, this is a beautiful start to a lifelong love letter.

  • A transformed heart, dependent on Christ and seeking to please Him in all things.

We are not perfect we’ll learn from our mistakes and as long as it takes I will prove my love to you.  I’m not scared of the elements I am underprepared but I am willing and even better, I get to be the other half of you.

  • Repentant of our failings, we are constantly striving to get it right. Courageous, we dare to be counter-cultural, knowing that God is with us and even better – the more we aim to please Him our reward will be great in heaven AND on earth as we share in His divinity.

I’ve added the link to the song above just in case you’d like to listen one more time after reading this interpretation.

I hope you enjoyed it! God bless you!
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