“And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” Colossians 3:15
Paul has been giving the Colossians instructions on how to live in this chapter. He starts with telling them that if you have “been raised with Christ” in other words if you are a Christian, you are to set your minds on things above. Some days when you have to grind out the day to day, it is hard to keep putting your mind on things above and not on what’s happening around you. But when you give your heart to Christ, everything is checked by things above. Now I am not saying that you look for a devil behind every rock so to speak, but there are always spiritual battles going on around us and setting your mind on things above is the way to get through them.
So you set your minds on things above, and you “put to death” (Col. 3:5) what is “earthly in you”, and yes he gives us a list of things. I am not one to want to give a list of rules and dos and don’ts when it comes to this Christian life, but I do think if we are Christians we are supposed to look and act like Christians and the things in Paul’s list are definitely things that would not characterize the Christian life. So we do have to look at this list and ask Jesus to help us put off those things.
And when we do that we, ask Him to help us put on the things of Christ. And Paul gives us this list too, “Compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” And love, we put on love for each other, above everything else, we love each other. Through our hurts, and our mistakes and our downfalls, we still need to love each other. And that is what will bring us to our focus verse.
When we are throwing of the things that are not of Christ and putting on the things that are of Christ, that’s when the peace of Christ will rule in our hearts. My heart is in turmoil when I am not walking in step with Him. That’s the bottom line. But also take note of the second part of this verse ~ “to which you were called in one body.” When we are walking, letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, we also will be walking in step with others who are in Christ. And that brings peace to the community of Christ!
You know I love to quote from other translations. I just like the wording of some of these translations to simplify things in my simple brain. This time, I really liked the simplicity of The Message.
“Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness.” Colossans 3:15 (MSG)
We were made for community, not going off and doing our own thing! When peace rules in our hearts and we walk in step with each other, peace will rule in the heart of our community as well.
Restore 