Today Our Daily Bread Col 3 & 2 Cor 2:14

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

Colossians 3

Not Carnality but Christ

1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, 7 in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. 8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

Character of the New Man
12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

The Christian Home
18 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. 20 Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. 22 Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. 23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for[a] you serve the Lord Christ. 25 But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality.

Footnotes:
Colossians 3:24 NU-Text omits for.

~Lena’s Journalin’~
The first verses are our daily challenge, yet should become more than challenges, as though they are a contest or competition, but they should truly become more of our daily goals.
Seeking 1st the kingdom of God and His right-eousness, that must be woven into every thought pattern. What or who am I seeking to promote in my daily life? Me? Money? Things? Or His will, His fellowship and his goals. We only have but few years to be a part of God’s will on earth, especially if we’ve just come into God’s will and we are middle aged already. Why is the pursuit of more things idolatry? Because the more things we have, the more secured to earth we feel, we are looking downward at temporary life and trying hard to hold on to it, we trust in its comforts and the big word- SECURITY. God asks us to trust in Him alone, not in how secure we feel, by having more things. It is a constant daily pull. Have you ever heard one say they’ve got their roots in a place? It seems the more things they have and set up around them in their houses the harder it would be to move them, they’re set in their ways. WOW. That’s serious, very serious. So, if God calls for us to go to meetings at church 3 times a week and at those meetings we learn how to become a person who would honor Him by modeling Him to a lost world and we would become effective in saving souls out of hell, but we have to dust, vacuum, polish, straighten, clean, maintain, re-arrange all of our stuff and it takes too much time and then after we take that time, we became very tired, so now we are tired, to tired to be a part of God’s goal of being trained and winning the world for him? WOW! What if God asks us to go into the world, go somewhere away from where we live? Are we able to, or do we have a lot of debt, a lot of things indebting us, a lot that needs to be maintained and we cannot even hardly leave our houses for even a day, there’s either so much to do there or so much to tend, we are entangled by more and more and more things. We own the things, or they own us?
Don’t get me wrong, we should own houses, cars, furniture and buy food and clothes and care for our families, but do having more things, better things, higher priced things keep calling us farther and farther away from being able to even attend to our families, because we have to work more to buy and maintain the things?
That is the God of mammon in operation over our culture. That is the LOVE of money entangling the potential people of God, which the word says is so evil.
It strangles even the possibility for the purpose of God to be able to be fulfilled in us.
Put off_____________........, put on_____________……..These are exactly as easy as putting clothes on or off. Choosing to wear a new fashion or not, discarding an old one (Ah, see the pull of worldly goods- have you been able to get rid of any old clothes?) We choose what we will wear of kingdom attire, Kingdom of God, or kingdom of the world attire. The world will recognize which we are “wearing”, the spirit world will recognize what we are “wearing” and so will the church. We’re marked by our attire, it speaks of who we are, a flesh man or a spirit man. Who’s we are, God’s or an enemy of God’s.
Put these OFF- haul these away. These have the labels of flesh, of the father of this world, whom we DO NOT belong to:
Fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth, & lies to one another.
PUT these ON- buy these, replace the old wardrobe, they will label you as a spirit man, a man who has a Father who loves and speaks for him well
Tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts be thankful Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
Do you ever feel the need to teach another Christian a thing or two? Don’t use the flesh nature to “help” another believer, use spiritual tools that encourage, admonish and promote love in them, such as psalms of praise, hymns and spiritual love songs, with much grace. These are completely contrary to corrective insistent forceful words to get our points across.

Wives give your love willingly to your husbands, devote your lives to an order that shows you are giving and yielding yourself to another, namely Christ. Use your marriage to demonstrate and put into practice preference. Your good, at my expense, because I choose it. Ladies, choose it and in so choosing demonstrate the character of Christ, prove Christ’s unforceful on the will of others love. This is fitting in the Lord, meaning it promotes or exemplifies Christ in you and in your home and to the world. Does the world like when they are feeling forced to serve God? Yet does God Our Father strongly desire that they serve Him, so much that for their good, in the way humans think- He’d like to force them to? His desire is that strong. The picture of marriage can show them that even when one “feels” forced they can give in with a yielding spirit, to another’s positional rule, for the good of the whole family, for the good of the model of giving and forgiving, for the model of order, for the model of blessing, for the model of unity where discontention could thrive and choose to divide. It’s really a model of how all of us can respond when called upon for unity in demonstration. We lay down our opinions, we lay down our desires, we change our plans, we do it with a giving to the promotion of unity spirit, and power comes to be God’s model in a lost world, to a dead and dark earth.
And all of these wisdom words we’ve learned today must penetrate our hearts, getting planted deep into the fiber of our spiritual beings. We’ve got to live them for that to happen. We cannot just do it because we have to with an “ok I have to” attitude. That is not life that is a mask. Take off the mask, repent of wrong thoughts and actions and change your garments, throw away old ones- today. Do all of these things and they will give glory to God! It is the offering of our lives to Him (Rom 12:1). He sees behind masks and changes the hearts of men through obedient actions of faith. Mix faith with the discarding of old things and the putting on of new things! That’s when you’ll see miracles unfold. Amen!

(daily repetitive verse)
2 Corinthians 2:14
Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.