Theological Commentary: Click Here
When we hit
Colossians 3 we truly get Paul’s version of costly grace vs. cheap grace. Going back to yesterday, we do understand
that God can forgive all. There is no
sin too big for God to forgive. But we
must not be careful to see this as permission.
Just because God can forgive all does not mean we have permission to do
all!
As Paul says
here in this chapter, there are certain activities that belong to the world and
are not a part of God. Anger, wrath,
malice, slander, obscene talk, and lies.
These behaviors have no place in the Christian walk. These are behaviors that are all
self-interested and self-serving. These
are behaviors that arise when we put ourselves first and stop thinking about
the other.
When we
allow ourselves to do these behaviors, what we are promoting is cheap grace. We promote a belief that God’s grace doesn’t
change us. We promote a belief that the
cross didn’t cost us – or God – anything at all. That simply isn’t true. Salvation is especially costly!
Instead, we replace
such behaviors with these tasks. Compassion,
kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiveness,
and love. These are all actions that put
the other person ahead of ourselves.
These are actions that show we are interested in the life and being of
the other person. This is what we see in
Jesus. God became man, put aside His
greatness, humbled Himself, and died for our sake. He did it for us. It cost Him substantially, but he did it with
us in mind.
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