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Category Archives: James “The Litmus Test for life”


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26 Rules or the Redeemer – Part 4

Colossians 2:13-23

13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. 16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. 19 They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. 20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

  1. FORGET FEELINGS -18-19

To many modern Christians, words like “mysticism” conjure up Eastern religions, yet it is something that Paul was dealing with in the church 2000 years ago and today is running rampant in Christian community with devastating consequences.

DEFINISION – Religious practice based on the belief that knowledge of spiritual truth can be gained by supernatural experiences and feelings. 

This is the opposite of legalism, it is spiritualism. Mysticism “begins with a mist and always ends in schism,” division. The mystic drive and desire is for special supernatural experiences so they can feel pure, they talk about voices and visions, I heard God or saw God. The goal is to know the deep things of God which again isn’t bad but just like purity pondering the deep things of God is found in Christ not craziness. The mystic wants to feel it and they believe that the secret and “deep” things of God cannot be found in conventional or even rational ways, so they turn to feeling. Today many people are seeking a feeling instead of seeking the Father, and in doing so they have made an idol of their emotions. Paul doesn’t want us to fall into the feeling trap when we have the foundation of facts. Today we want to feel like we are loved by God more that knowing we are loved by Him. Christ didn’t die on the cross so you could feel loved He died on the cross so you could be loved. I don’t feel like I’m in loved by my wife I know I’m in love with my wife, the same is true in my relationship with God. The problem with a feeling focused approach is that instead of connecting to Christ we are cut off from him. There is no life when the body is separated from the head. You can chase after revelations, out-of-body experiences, visions, and spiritual feelings and slowly strangle yourself from a real relationship with Jesus Christ.


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11 “Who’s the Boss?” – Part 2  

Colossians 1:15-22 

“15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. 17 He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. 18 Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. 19 For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, 20 and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. 21 This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 22 Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.”

Jesus has supremacy over:

  1. CREATION – Vs 15-17 He’s in Control

A. Start

He is the Creator of all things. The big question has always been: Who made who? Did God make man, or did man make God? Is man in the image of God, or is God in the imagination of man? This deals with the Evil of evolution the doctrine of the devil: “There is no God”  It’s a convincing lie because it makes us think that we are in control. We fight control we want to be in charge we are like the little kid who says “Your not the boss of me” Yet when we believe the lie and try to take control chaos follows because we become chained to chance, Evolution gives us control with no hope for change. If you want change you have to evolve and that takes more time than your life has to offer. It takes control from the creator and gives it to the creation, “Mother nature” is now in control so that becomes what we worship. What Paul is reminding us of is that Jesus wasn’t just there when life began it began because He was there. He is in control and we don’t have to live in the darkness and chaos. Genesis 1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep”

He made what we can and can’t see this is the totality of things, it includes both flowers of creation and the forces, radiation, magnetism, gravity. It encompasses every realm, every sphere, every bastion, border, dimension and domain. This is Good News for people obsessed with Fate and Superstition it means Jesus has liberated them having to follow any other ‘Powers’ accept Christ. We find a counterpart today, in the theory of reincarnation and in horoscopes and astrology—the idea of stars influencing and governing our lives. The claim that Transcendental Meditation is the means of getting in touch with invisible beings is another example. We are told that there are Astral Teachers, Spirit Guides and Divine Masters who appear from time to time to impart degrees of knowledge to the human race. All this is nothing new. It is an old dress with a new hat. This is what the apostle labors to correct. He is telling the Colossians, “Jesus is above all angels. You are freed from bondage to these lesser beings when you see the true authority and power of your risen Lord.”

B. Sustainer

Jesus is not Just the Starter he is the Sustainer. Scientist Stephen Hawking says, “The eventual goal of Science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe”. Jesus. Today there are those who don’t recognize Him as the creator and from the start they try to run their own lives and then there are those who start with Jesus but then steer off into self-sustainer.  Who is really holding it all together, who is rotating the earth keeping us at the right distance from the sun. Who provides the light and the rain? The single theory that describes the whole universe is Jesus, He is the sustaining force that holds all things together, the unifying principle, the cosmic cohesion. This is not just on a planetary perspective but also a personal one. You and I can rest and relax we don’t have to try to hold it together let Jesus be in control.  By Him everything came to be, and by Him everything continues to be.

C. Satisfaction

Jesus is not only the start and sustainer, He is the source of satisfaction, He gives purpose to life, we were not just created by Him but for Him. The goal of all creation is to glorify Christ. Revelation 4:11, puts it this way: “…For you created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.”