Here is the second part of my church "business" meeting
devotional, word-for-word. You can find the first post here.
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2. My second observation from this passage in Colossians is this: The reason we are here today, gathered together as a church, is because Jesus Christ gave His blood on the cross. Jesus is the head of the church. He is in charge. He is the one in which our church moves and breathes and has its being. Without Him we are a chicken running around without a Head. Without Him we are a decapitated body. Jesus Christ is the First. He is the One and Only One who can give direction and breath to the body… who can breathe life into dry bones.
All of God’s fullness lives in Jesus Christ. And everything is reconciled to God because Jesus Christ gave His blood, His life for us. Even though we had become His enemies, he stretched out his arms to carry us. We had rebelled against our Creator. We had tried to cut our own Head off. We had rejected the One who had knit us together. Yet He reconciled us… and made us His friends. Isaiah said that “we turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised and we did not care.” Yet, now he binds us together as His friends. He has done this through his death on the cross in His own human body. As a result, He has brought us into the very presence of God, and we are holy and blameless as we stand before him without a single fault. The Gift of God is eternal life. Isaiah said “it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down… He was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. By His wounds we are healed!” And so God draws us into His presence. In Isaiah 55 He says “Come to me with your ears open. Listen for the life of your soul is at stake. I am ready to make an everlasting covenant with you. I will give you all the mercies and unfailing love that I promised David. So seek the Lord while you can. Call on him while he is near!” Romans 5:8 says that God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. The Apostle John wrote, “To all who believed in Him and accepted His message, he gave the right to become children of God. Reborn! No more sting of death. No more separation from God! That is why Jesus became flesh and made his dwelling among us! He is full of grace and truth!” We gather together here today as a church because Jesus Christ is amazing and because He gave His blood to reconcile us with God.