Lesson 10 – Struggling for the Right Goal, part 2 (2:6-7)
Read Colossians 2 - www.bible.com/bible/59/col.2
Our 2 verses for this lesson seem so simple, and yet are probably the one greatest example of how we fail in our Christian life every day. And just in case we think we’re the only ones who fail, let me take you to Genesis 15 and tell you the story of Abraham.
Abraham had just received an incredible promise from God in verse 1. In verse 2, he asks God how He could promise this thing when Abraham had no children on whom such blessings could be bestowed. God made him an even greater promise – his descendants would number more than the stars he could count in the skies. Abraham believed this promise from God – it was the moment, according to Romans 4:3 that Abraham received eternal life from God, becoming God’s child.
Abraham may have walked around in a daze for a day or so, thinking about the great number of descendants God had promised him before the questions started. How could this be since he was already an old man, and Sarah, his wife was already beyond the age of being able to have children?
The result of this thinking about it is shown in the next chapter – Sarah figures out a way to make God’s promise work, and Abraham goes along with the idea – and they have a son by Abraham’s union with one of Sarah’s servants.
God’s command to us in our Colossians verses is that we are to continue with Him the same way we began. Abraham began by believing God. That’s the same way we start – by believing Him and placing our faith in Him. But just as Abraham thought he had to take matters into his own hands, and make the promise happen any way he could figure out, so we too want to take matters into our own hands and do what we think is right.
But God says, continue the way you started – by believing in Me and trusting Me. Every step of our lives should continue in the faith with which we started our life with God. We should never believe the lie that we are now given all of God’s wisdom so we can figure things out for ourselves.
*Thought question – in what part of your life are you most likely to try to do things your own way rather than trusting God completely for His plan?