6. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord
so walk in Him,
7. rooted and built up in Him
and established in the faith,
as you have been taught,
abounding in it
with thanksgiving.
Colossians 2:6-7
(NKJV)

Our fallen human nature insists on attempting to merit God’s favor in spite of God’s clear warning that salvation is “not of works, lest any man should boast”. Nevertheless, once humbled to confess our sin and gratefully accept God’s free gift of salvation, we sometimes set out to accomplish our own sanctification. Paul warns the Colossians that the same grace and faith that brought them to receive Jesus Christ as Savior enables them to live for Him.

Grace is the desire and power to obey God’s commands as we find them in His Word. Faith is that act of our will to choose God’s will. Faith lays hold on God’s power to fulfill our God-given desires. By faith Abraham left Ur. Faith is the step of action empowered by grace. Paul states, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (pours His power into me). The Christian life therefore is not my attempting to live like Jesus lived, but rather choosing to allow Jesus to live His life in me. It is that choice by faith to confess that He knows best and that by His grace I choose to follow His directions. Christians must work, and work hard, but we only do those works that God prepared for us from before the foundation of the world and we only do them out of gratitude for salvation and not as merit to gain salvation, which we already have by faith.

“Rooted and built up in Him” emphasizes the fact that we obtain all the needed strength for spiritual growth from Christ Himself, in the same way that the roots of a plant draw strength from the soil to produce growth and fruit. The result is that we become established in the faith, firm in that teaching passed on to us by the Scriptures God has preserved for us. As we fill our minds and hearts with the Word of God, we bubble over with joyous gratitude for the marvelous salvation given to us by our gracious God.

Christ is the perfect human expression of the Father for He said whoever has seen me has seen the Father. We now possess that completion and experience it as we walk in the Spirit and do not fulfill the desires of the flesh. We are the human expression of the Father as Jesus lives his life through us. We must live the Christian life by the same faith that brought us to salvation.

Two things are critical to remember if we are to walk the same way we were saved:

Our salvation is by faith – Christ comes in when we repent and believe.
Our daily walk is by faith – Christ lives his life in us as we submit to His leadership.

Prisoners of war
Colossians 2:8

What hinders us from becoming like the Christ who saved us? Satan deceives us, cheats us, and takes us captive like prisoners of war.

8. Beware lest anyone cheat you
through philosophy and empty deceit,
according to the tradition of men
according to the basic principles of the world
and not according to Christ.

Satan hates to see a delivered and delighted soul. He immediately seeks a way to bring that soul back into the drudgery of bondage. He will attempt to deceive us and cheat us, so we must be aware of his tactics.

Near our home in Chile the municipality closed off a nearby street every Wednesday for use as an open market. Venders came early to set up their tables to display their assortment of wares including fruit, vegetables, and various types of meat. A large quarter of beef was displayed and you could request a slice from any part you wished. Another table had a number of rabbits hanging by their feet waiting to be purchased and cleaned. Usually things were fresher and more reasonable in the market than in the little neighborhood store, but we had been warned to beware of an occasional merchant who might try to cheat us. In fact, there was a common saying regarding a person who had been cheated in any way at all, “They passed him a cat for a rabbit.” If you like rabbit meat you pick out the one you want from the assortment displayed. The vendor then would skin, clean, and wrap the rabbit for you. But you must watch carefully that you get the animal that you chose because once skinned and the tail, paws and head were removed you can’t tell a rabbit from a cat. By a little sleight of hand you might end up taking home one of the many alley cats that roamed the city. The devil is a master at making a lie sound like the truth and delights in feeding you his “alley cats”.
The word “cheat” can also be translated “spoil”. Satan’s goal is to take us as spoil, as prisoners of war and make us his slaves. He does this through philosophy (proud intellectualism) and empty deceit (high sounding nonsense). Since man is essentially selfish, it is easy for me to rationalize anything that is convenient or profitable for me. In Paul’s day this intellectual nonsense had two main sources and they continue to be prominent in our day.

Satan finds his first source of lies in the traditions of men—religious rules that are supposed to give us clout with God when we at least try to keep them. People love to think they can earn their own way to heaven, rather than accepting God’s simple plan of repentance and faith—confess their sins to God and receive the forgiveness Christ purchased for us on the cross. The Pharisees had pulled out of the writings of previous generations 613 complicated, detailed rules that resulted in a burdensome yoke on their nation. Jesus faced those leaders with the fact that they would cross land and sea to make one proselyte, yet would then make him two-fold more a child of hell than they themselves.

Satan finds his second source of lies in the basic principles of this world – the way of thinking that everything needs to “add up” or be reconciled to human logic. Reconcile means to make or show to be consistent with or to harmonize. However, God warns us

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8 NKJV)

One day the reporter who took down Spurgeon’s sermons by shorthand to publish them in the newspaper asked him: “Mr. Spurgeon, how is it that you begin every sermon as a Calvinist and end that sermon as an Arminian? How do you reconcile that?” Spurgeon replied: “God never commanded me to reconcile the Scriptures, but only to preach them.”

Scripture alerts us that,

“There is a way that seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death”. Proverbs 16:25 NKJV

Man’s thoughts are high sounding nonsense leading to destruction. They lead you away as prey. They take you prisoner to their “camp”. They make spoil of you by redefining certain words, making them empty and deceitful. They rob you of the part of God’s truth that doesn’t fit into their theological box.

No More Baggage
Colossians 2:9-10

9. For in Him dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
10. And you are complete in Him
who is the head
of all principality and power.

Jesus took upon Himself our humanity, and yet He is as completely God as the Father and the Holy Spirit. He is over all things. All principalities and powers are subject to Him. When you have a big problem you go right to the top for the answer. Jesus is the top. He has the final word regarding who and what is right! All vain thinking and traditions of men will be rejected, for He is on the throne and is in total control.

This is why we can sing, “Jesus Christ is made to me all I need, all I need.” When He comes to dwell in our heart and take charge of our life we are then complete. Without Him we are incomplete regardless of our position or possessions. Only the indwelling presence of Jesus gives us complete peace, and joy. Without Him we feel empty and we search in vain for something to fill that void until we find Him. And He is not hard to find. He is very near and we are told in Scripture: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” You call and He will hear. Ask Him to forgive and enter and He will clean up your life and make your heart His home.

God then sees Jesus dwelling in us and we stand before God complete. Since Christ is the head of all principality and power He has both the AUTHORITY and ABILITY to make us like Himself. He begins the process now and completes it when He takes us to be with Him in glory. At death we will leave the old man behind with all his baggage and have only the perfection of Christ.

But while we are still in the flesh we have our old man with all his baggage tagging along and attempting to drag us into our old paths. The devil deceives us and the old nature draws us, but the indwelling Christ empowers us to walk in victory. We only fail when we believe the devil’s lies and forget the indwelling Christ.

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