Spiritual Economy-Week 3

Colossians 3:5–14 NIV

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Something important we need to understand:

Investing in heaven is an action, not just a direction

Matthew 7:21 NIV

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Paul in this section encourages us to practices two major things to transform our nature into what Jesus wants for us.

The First major thing is:

Put to death the evil things inside of us

It would be nice, if this was ‘put to death those things in SOMEONE ELSE’S life’.

Matthew 15:11 NIV

What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

to put this in banking terms:

It’s not what anyone does to you, tries to take from you, or puts on you. It’s what you have in you already that’ll make you poor in the spirit.

This is both liberating and terrifying.

It’s liberating because, the core elements to being spiritually great, the actions we need to take to succeed - they’re in our hands, and always will be. Nobody can take away your ability to be great in the spirit. Nobody can separate you from the process God is doing in your life. Somebody else’s victory doesn’t make yours harder.

Jesus created YOU, and he intended to create you. And when he works with you, he looks right at you, and he knows what you have to work with.

THE PARABLE OF THE SERVANTS - different starting amounts, same response because of the same relative output.

It’s terrifying because - we’re the problem. The thing we have to give up is already in us, and we’re....not always a fan of that.

We want to place the BLAME outside of us.

Jesus looks at you and says, I love you dearly and I created you intentionally. And also - it’s what’s in you that’s the problem here.

Maybe you aren’t as bad as that other guy - but what’s in you is just as poisonous to your relationship with God. The sin in you is just as much going to result in death.

So when we look at other people and we say, ‘If only I had what that person had, I’d be able to do what God wants!’ - we’re deceiving ourselves. God’s not asking you to do what the other person does. He’s asking you to do what he made YOU to do.

But when we look at other people and say, ‘I’m not as bad as that guy, so I must be good!’ we’re ALSO deceiving ourselves. He’s not asking you to give up what that other person is holding onto. He’s asking you to give up what you’re holding onto.

Take a good honest look - what are you holding onto?

This is a pretty big list - but it’s not extensive. There’s tons of stuff that God isn’t a fan of in each one of our natures. What are you holding onto?

Once we learn to let go - you will see AMAZING things happening in your life spiritually.

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The second major thing is this:

Take on the righteous things God is giving you

Notice Paul’s langage. He says - put to death these things that are in you. But clothe yourselves with these things that God gives. AKA - sin is something that starts in each one of us, but righteousness is something God gives to us from outside of us.

There’s a surrendering aspect here. We first recognize that the problem is only us. But then we take that next step and say, ‘the solution is only God’.

Love is what solidifies God’s work in our life

If you asked me to pick what this was, i’d say knowledge. Or maturity. Or experience. Or skill and capacity. All those things make sense.

We ACT like this is the case. Like the thing that makes you more effective, more mature, better in God’s eyes practically is how skilled or intelligent you are, how much you possess.

But God says - what makes these traits stick is love.

This is why kindness is so ridiculously important. Because if we can’t love other people - we can’t grow as the kind of people God wants us to be.

1 John 4:20 NIV

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

Now, there’s a really important thing we need to understand about this power of love. And John says it literally right before this verse:

1 John 4:19 NIV

We love because he first loved us.

You have the power to love, because of how powerful God’s love is for you