The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"By Christ Jesus"
"Choose life" commanded Moses to the Israelites not long before his passage from the earth. He went on to add the meaning of such a decision: "He is thy life" (Deuteronomy 30:19-20). In New Testament terms, this means choose Christ, who "is our life" (Colossians 3:4).
What does this mean in practical terms? First, born again believers establish in our hearts and minds the truth that the Lord Jesus serves as the heart of God's provision for every aspect of our life and existence.
"My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).
Our Savior graces every breath given to us by our Heavenly Father, as well as all other gifts and provisions. Without Him, God could not receive and bless us because atonement for our sins had to be made, and Christ made it. Apart from Him, eternal wrath could only be our rightful portion. Furthermore, the Lord Jesus maintains our relationship and standing with God as "He ever liveth to make intercession" for us (Hebrews 7:25). Believers are "accepted in the Beloved" and "God hath blessed us all spiritual blessings in the Heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3; 6). Clearly, the Lord Jesus serves as the center and circumference of all Divine provision, a doctrinal truth of Scripture we must make the personal truth of our hearts.
Upon this basis, we live our lives affirming Christ amid the blessings and challenges of our everyday lives. We receive God's gifts in the realization that Christ purchased them for us by His blood, and that He somehow comes with the blessing. Again, Paul declares God's supply to be "by Christ Jesus." The Giver comes with His gifts, as it were. This is reminicient of the Macedonian believers, of whom the Apostle wrote regarding their giving, "They first gave their own selves to the Lord" (II Corinthians 8:5). We also realize the Lord Jesus as our provision and defender in the difficulties of life. "The Captain of our salvation" provides His "very present help in trouble," calling us to seek His "grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 2:10; Psalm 46:1; Hebrews 4:16). We can be sure that no challenge any believer faces finds us without the Lord Jesus, and without His care and working to defend and redeem us. "He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5).
God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and the Word of God unite to emphasize and exalt the Lord Jesus as our supply in all things (Mark 9:7; John 16:14; 5:39). To the degree we join the emphasis and exaltation will be the degree to which we experience our Savior as the Life of our lives, and the heart of all provision from the God who gave His Son to be all we will ever need.
"He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence."
(Colossians 1:18)
Weekly Memory Verse
By Him all things consist.
(Colossians 1:17)
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