difference in how we live. This week, we will explore Paul’s words of letting Christ’s peace rule our hearts. When that happens, what comes out of us should be a reflection of the peace we have been called to. What is this peace? What should come out of us? Join us as we unpack these three rich verses from Paul.

In Colossians 3, the Apostle Paul gives instructions for relationships in the household. While these have been misused as a power grab by some, Paul is giving the Church a guide for following Jesus at home through love, service and mutual submission. May we take these instructions to heart as a guide for following Jesus in all our relationships in and out of the home.

We often measure ourselves by how others see us, or at least we feel measured by others (read: judged). When that happens in our Christian faith, it can taint the way we think God sees us. The Apostle Paul tells us in Colossians that God has given us a new identity in Christ, so the old judgments the world uses don’t apply to us anymore. “These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ” (2:17). At the cross Christ frees us from the burden of false shame and the deceptiveness of false pride. May God fill us with the joy of his complete acceptance, forgiven and free.

Often we focus on our decisions and our role in baptism, but Paul emphasizes God’s actions in our baptism. God joins us with Christ in his death and resurrection through baptism and claims us as his own. In baptism, God gives us a new identity in Christ.

Three times in this section of Colossians Paul refers to a great mystery now revealed, namely Christ in us, the hope of glory. It seems so obvious to us now that Christ came to redeem people from every nation, but the inclusion of Gentiles into God’s people – the Jews – was highly controversial in the early church. Christ, and Christ alone, is our hope of glory (think supremacy and sufficiency). Do we still proclaim and live out the wideness of God’s mystery? May we, like Paul, contend for this grace to all (2:1).