Hold Fast!

Daily Reading: Colossians 2

Scripture Focus:  ...holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. (Colossians 2.19)

Devotional Thought: If you know me at all, you know how adamant I am about there being no such thing as a “Churchless Christianity.”  It is found nowhere in the Bible.  Instead, the church is “nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments" - the people and relationships within the church.  We support one another and hold each other up. 

I have a dear friend who is a believer in the Lord, loving him 100%.  She is grateful for God’s saving and delivering grace!  But something is missing.  I so desperately want her to have more than “Jesus and me – we got a good thing going," and recently I felt the Spirit move me to say, “Yes, I know that we can make it to heaven without attending church – because it is only by grace we are saved through faith.  But, think of all the people who will not find their way because we are not part of a local congregation.  God is calling you, ‘Come up here.  I need you to help me reach more people.’” 

It is in The Church that we are trained, encouraged, supported, and employed to fulfill the mission of Christ.  It is in The Church that we preserve and multiply the disciples of Jesus.  Jesus said, “I will build my church.”  He did not say, “I will build a whole bunch of individuals who know me and who have a good thing going with me.”  We need The Church, and The Church needs us.  Those people and relationships of the church are indescribably valuable - conduits through which God pours his grace.

Are you holding fast to the Head?

Prayer: Thank you, Lord Jesus, for making your church holy, for building your church, and for using your church to be a conduit of your grace.  Help me to be nourished and knit together with your Church.  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 22.25-31

25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will perform before those who fear him.

26 The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD! May your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.

28 For kingship belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations.

29 All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive.

30 Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;

31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.