A Different Channel

Colossians 2:8-15

If and maybe a big if, but if you have decided to follow Jesus, and by faith, you have agreed with the Lord that you're playing “Lord of the Ring” the captain of your ship is not working.   And by faith have invited Jesus to take over management of your life; you need an understanding of what Paul is saying.  Your worldly friends are not going to like the new you. They will be offended that you have become so narrow to believe that the choices we make have eternal ramifications.  They do not mind you going to church, even though they feel it is a waste of time, one could be fishing, golfing, or just sleeping.  But they do not have a moral authority; they do not understand why or how you got so messed up.

It sounds like your old friends listen to a different channel than you do, they have a worldview that on close examination is vastly different, and yet they may be morally good people and great neighbors, and even vote for the same kinds of individuals that you do. 

But the battle they want to change is the outward things, like taxes, and better schools, and as a follower of Christ, you are being changed in your spirit by the Spirit of God to look at life, the culture, and people from heaven’s view.  And the culture is controlled by the one Jesus refers to as the thief or the devil, and it wants to take each of us “captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”

It is so important to understand this concept – “Birth always determines identity, ” and you have been born again into Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”

Verse 15, He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” You and I need a better understanding of who disarmed these rulers and powers so that we grasp who’s the shadow government, not the one ran by George Soros, but they are under the devil's control.  If you turn to Ephesians 6:11-12, it is a clear statement of who the shadow government is that you and I battle every day. “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” 

Christ has defeated them, but until the time God has chosen, they still have the power to mess with you and I.  Let us end with Romans 8:37-39, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice