Lesson 18 – Seeking the Right Passion, part 3 (3:12-17)
Read Colossians 3 - www.bible.com/bible/59/col.3
In the last lesson we saw the things we need to give up to have the right passion in our lives. But since God never just takes things away from us without also replacing with better things, let’s look at our verses for today, verses 12-14 for what God wants in our life instead of those things from our last lesson:
-Compassionate heart
-Kindness
-Humility
-Meekness
-Patience
-Bearing with one another
-Forgiving each other
-Love – the kind that creates harmony
Wouldn’t you much rather be with a person like this than a person with the qualities we saw in the last lesson? Wouldn’t you much rather BE this person?
But how do we put on these qualities? How can we change from who we have been to this person we want to become? The answer is given in verses 15-17.
First, we allow God’s peace to rule in our hearts. We don’t need to give in to greed or fear or anger – we can choose to allow God’s peace to calm our hearts. Recently our only car broke down, and I knew repairs would be very expensive. My natural tendency was to worry what I should do, where will this money come from, should I buy a new car instead of repairing, and more. But I chose to give it to God and let Him lead me in making the right decision. I put out several calls to individuals to give me estimates, and I allowed those estimates to come in over several days. God clearly pointed me in the direction He chose – I let His peace lead me through what could have been a hard choice, and instead made it an easy choice.
With thanksgiving – we never tire of telling God thanks for all He does for us.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you – this can only happen as we spend time reading. But this is never a time to speed-read; instead we savor and meditate and treasure His word as He teaches and corrects, and gives us wisdom – which in turn put a song of praise and thanksgiving into our hearts. I do not believe it is possible for our hearts to run over with such song and still harbor anger and bitterness.
Lastly, we change our focus for everything we do – in word or deed – from doing it for ourselves or to garner favor with another person. Our focus for everything in our life becomes Jesus Christ. He is the One for whom we are a factory worker or a teacher or a policeman or a parent or anything else we are.