“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and
admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Colossians 3:16)
1. There is something called, “the word of Christ”.
Application: Do not stop at the words
of man, but find this word that surpasses all other words.
2. This word can “dwell” in people.
Application:
Do not settle for this word of Christ living outside your life, or blessing the
lives of others; experience it making its home in your own heart.
3. This word can dwell in people “richly”.
Application: Do not settle for a weak
or impoverished experience of this word, but seek the richest possible
experience of the words of God.
4. This word is the spring from which we teach one
another.
Application: Make this the spring
from which we drink the deepest, longest, most often, and make it the source of
what we seek to enrich the lives of others.
5. In teaching one another this word, we have the
necessity and means of admonishing one another to live by this word.
Application: Do not miss the rich
treasure of both urging righteous responses to the teaching of this word, and
warning against unrighteous responses to the teaching of the words of Christ.
6. It is only through the word of Christ that we
can teach and admonish “in all wisdom”.
Application: Do not rely on the
wisdom of the world for teaching and admonishing, but on the wisdom found in
the words of our Savior.
7. The richness of the word of Christ in us causes
us to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs.”
Application: Do not settle for the
music of the world, the flesh, and the devil, when the rich, inner, experience
of the words of Christ produces the music of the heavenly kingdom for the
edification of the body-of-Christ-choir, the Church.
8. The word of Christ dwelling in the church
richly causes thankfulness in our hearts to God.
Application: Let us seek this
unified, corporate experience of the words of Christ dwelling in the Church so
richly that it stirs up constant thanksgiving in heart and expression, for the
further building up of the body of Christ.
The fact that we are speaking of the “word of Christ”, the personal word of the very personal Shepherd
of the flock of God, means we should have a daily time with God, prayerfully
meditating upon these words, until our experience rises up to the meaning of
the words “dwell in you richly”.
Because such a thing is possible, and because “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ,”[1] we must simply make the most of what God has given
to us.
We can be quite sure that God is speaking to us through his
word. It is up to us to “let” this
word of Christ reach its ultimate fulfillment in our lives. Not only will that
give God glory for the powerful working of his word, but it will do us the
greatest good that any words could ever do.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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