Today Our Daily Bread Col 1 & John 1:14

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 1:1-29
1I, Paul, have been sent on special assignment by Christ as part of God's master plan. Together with my friend Timothy, 2I greet the Christians and stalwart followers of Christ who live in Colosse. May everything good from God our Father be yours!

Working in His Orchard
3Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings. We can't quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you! 4We keep getting reports on your steady faith in Christ, our Jesus, and the love you continuously extend to all Christians. 5The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope.The Message is as true among you today as when you first heard it. It doesn't diminish or weaken over time. 6It's the same all over the world. The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger, just as it has in you. From the very first day you heard and recognized the truth of what God is doing, you've been hungry for more. 7It's as vigorous in you now as when you learned it from our friend and close associate Epaphras. He is one reliable worker for Christ! I could always depend on him. 8He's the one who told us how thoroughly love had been worked into your lives by the Spirit.
9Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. 10We pray that you'll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. 11We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul--not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, 12thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that He has for us.
13God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He's set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, 14the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.
Christ Holds It All Together
15We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. 16For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels--everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. 17He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. 18And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.He was supreme in the beginning and--leading the resurrection parade--he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. 19So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. 20Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe--people and things, animals and atoms--get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross.
21You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. 22But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God's side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. 23You don't walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message--just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.
24I want you to know how glad I am that it's me sitting here in this jail and not you. There's a lot of suffering to be entered into in this world--the kind of suffering Christ takes on. I welcome the chance to take my share in the church's part of that suffering. 25When I became a servant in this church, I experienced this suffering as a sheer gift, God's way of helping me serve you, laying out the whole truth.
26This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it's out in the open. 27God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance of our Message. 28We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. 29That's what I'm working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me.

~Lena’s Journalin’~
The word for the city means Gigantic Monstrous. I think of Paul saying to everyone today, “To those involved in HUGE- Monstrous Kingdom business with God”… “All of you Christians, everywhere, anywhere, who will join His Gigantic work in the earth.”
How do lines of purpose never grow slack? He said never. Through being involved with God’s purposes.
There are many, many purposes in the earth available for us to take a hold of, but which will keep us in the fulfillment that comes in purpose? Most things we go after only offer temporary satisfaction and then fade away, those are more like goals than purposes. They are of the natural nature of thinking, but as we set our eyes eternally, those purposes nevr ever fade away, even after we leave this earth.
With the truth of God’s word, we are both satisfied and desire more, but not because we weren’t ever satisfied. We go from purpose to purpose, as ones who are growing, from one stage in life to another.
Vs-11-13 are a great prayer to pray over believers. It is so key for focusing and sticking to God purposes. Once one decides to go for God’s purposes you can be sure tests will follow afterwards to test if you mean what you said or will follow through with the integrity of the words you speak for god. God need people who will say what they mean and mean what they say. People of integrity. That’s why tests will come, to show us how much integrity we have and how sure we are of what we have said, are we sure enough to carry out our words and live them out.
Look at this thought, we are despise hypocrisy, right? The world even talks about hypocrisy and how much they despise and and how much they even have a distaste for God’s house because of it. Well, who are the hypocrites? I mean I go to church, love God etc. I also am human and may say a few things I intend to do, yet I don’t follow through. I may say to someone, I’ll help you with that, and walk away and forget. My intentions were good ones and I do love th person and want to help them, but if I did not set a date and show up to help, I’ve spoken hypocritical words. If I’m walking in purpose God will probably remind me of these word someday, when I tune in and He may say, “Do you do what you say?” Doing is what counts. He tells me that He does what He says, do I?
So it would probably be better not to say it right? Well, not so much. It would be better having of said it, to do it, or to repent to the person, genuinely even to my own hurt and arrange a later time to make up for it. We are sometimes too black and white in our thinking and behaviors. To not give promises to God is rebellion and immaturity at work trying to keep us from growing in God. God wants us to come to a place of faith, go ahead and say it by faith, know there is a test on the way to what we’ve said, and pass it with flying colors. That is when we go on.
We do this with God. We say, “we’re giving our all to You”, then we also say things like, “I’m gonna seek You”, I’m gonna start going to church”, etc. Well I guarantee you, no matter how much weight you put in those words a test will come to see how much you mean them. You said it, God believes it and expects us to follow through in demonstration. When we are willing to follow through in demonstration, He will begin to use us in big kingdom business!
So, we said we were gonna start going to church, he’s still waiting for us to be full-timers, the ones there whenever the door opens, really. He isn’t thinking we’ll visit church whenever it’s convenient for us. No, we make it a priority, even to our own hurt. This kind of person who gives priority to God, His Word, His people & worship, that is the kind of person God will use in Big kingdom business. If we only visit, He’ll probably only visit us. Wouldn’t we rather he live in us?
Christ in us working with us and us with Him, in BIG KINGDOM BUSINESS! Amen !

John 1:14 So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. F1 And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.