I don’t always take the time to read the product labels while grocery shopping, but I have certainly become more and more aware of the ingredients in food items these past few years. There are ingredients I must avoid due to allergic reactions, fats I should restrict for maintaining healthy blood vessels, and added chemicals I need to identify and avoid because they are harmful to my overall health. Advertising makes everything sound so good, but is everything actually good for our bodies?
In our passage today, the Apostle Paul wants us to understand God has placed his label on his children; we are his offspring revealing the details and instructions for spiritual life with God. Believers bear God’s name and we communicate the life-giving details of salvation to others through our attitudes, words, and actions. We are sealed by the Spirit who desires to convey truth to us and through us. It is hypocrisy to say we believe and serve God and then follow the cultural standards of the world. Is living as an example of the world good advertising for God’s powerful Kingdom and rule?
Therefore, the ingredients we bring into our lives matter to our spiritual health. We cannot consume sin and be spiritually healthy. We cannot fill our souls with worldly ideas and still operate in the attitude of Christ. The Word of God helps to define Christ’s nature and character for us, so what we take in needs to produce Christlikeness in us. If what we take into our spirits and souls is not godly, it will not produce spiritual health.
Can you imagine God’s label of ingredients for believers reading: 50% anger, 20% immorality, 10% foul language, and 20% evil deeds to meet our 100% daily requirement for spiritual health? Ridiculous! I am so grateful for God’s grace, but I know it was not given as a gift to help me avoid the consequences of my sin. I need the power of grace to live righteously; Christ in me is all that matters for my spiritual health. He wants to help me make wise choices for what I consume…keeping me spiritually healthy.
Colossians 3:1-11 NLT Living the New Life
3 Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. 6 Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming [on those who disobey him]. 7 You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. 8 But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. 9 Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. 10 Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. 11 In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for placing your label upon our lives; we desire to honor your name in how we live in relationship with you and with others. Holy Spirit, help us to be honest with you about what upsets us and makes us experience anger toward others; we need you to help us get rid of anger. Our words can be so hateful and mean; our jesting can be slanderous and cruel. We can post things on social media that are just awful about others in order to demand our own way. Please forgive us; we claim to be believers in the Truth [the Christ] and we must grow up and live in him. In Jesus’ name. Amen.