Colossians 2:6 (New King James) 

“As you received… so walk.”

This week we will do one more “camping” trip – this time camping on Colossians 2:6-8. This is a rich few verses with so much meaning packed into them, they could easily become “life-time” verses as you’ll see. Consider the first phrase from the New King James Version “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him…” The word “As” means we’re dealing with a simile, comparing something to something else which is similar. So, what are the two things that are similar?

It would be the same as comparing two different “times” of your life, like saying “childhood is like retirement,” or “infancy is like adolescence.” In this case Paul, the author of Colossians, says that our “spiritual birth” is like “the rest of our spiritual life.” The New International Version pens the phrase, “as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him.” If this is true, what did we do when we “received” Christ Jesus as Lord?

CONFESS

For me, God’s Spirit woke me up to HOW STUPID I’d been, how I’d lived my life trying to avoid God, and how many things I’d done in my life were a direct violation of God’s good intentions for His good plan for me. I recognized I was “FILTHY” in His sight – totally errant in the way I looked at my Creator, and thus looked at ALL things – I had missed the mark – (which is the meaning of sin!). I just started telling God what He was revealing to ME about myself! That is true confession – and that was part of my “receiving Christ.”

REPENT

Having woken up to these facts, I began to see that the direction my life had taken was totally wrong! I needed to make a “U-TURN,” both in the sense of my behavior, and also my plans. I knew immediately that God’s Spirit was empowering me to make a very positive change of mind, behavior, and life-plans – this is what it means to metanoia (the original Greek word we translate “repent,” to change one’s mind about something).

BELIEVE

I became aware of the fact that I had only trusted and believed in myself! HOW DUMB… If I lived on the east coast of Brazil, and wanted to go to Bolivia on the west coast of South America, I could do it MY way, or I could do it in a jet designed to get me there in 3 hours. MY way – trusting ONLY in my abilities, would mean I start to walk on my own two feet, through the jungle, gathering my own food, across rivers filled with alligators, piranhas, and snakes. TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE! But I could simply put my trust in a pilot and his airplane, and be “transported” there. My “faith” in Christ is the same – placing my trust for my life forever in His care – no longer trying myself to “earn” God’s favor, but rather believing that EVERYTHING Christ had done on the Cross was enough to earn God’s favor. My trust had been transferred from ME to CHRIST, and my eternal destiny had been transported from DEATH to LIFE!

Consider the three elements of “receiving” Christ above and reread Colossians 2:6. How do these three things continue to show up in our daily walk and experience as believers?