Day Sixteen - Fixing our Minds on Christ

Thanks for joining me again today! I'm pleased to have you here as we fix our minds on Christ and walk through our daily devotion through the book of Colossians. Today we remain in chapter 3. We are going to look at verses 9 through 11.

 "Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all." 

Colossians 3:9-11 (HCSB)

Intentional or Unintentional Dishonesty

When you consider the word lie, you might think of it as an intentional way of deceiving someone. But there are other ways to be dishonest that I want to look at with you today. 

First of all, are you pretending to be someone you're not? We talked yesterday about putting off things of the flesh and how we don't want to just put them off from time to time so that people will get the right image of us. We want to put them off once and for all with totality and completeness. So, trying to be someone that you're not or putting on a front that is not truly who you are is a way of deceiving someone. Think through that with me a little bit. We don't want to act in such a way. We want to be true to ourselves and who Christ is through us.

Another thing I'd like for you to think through is keeping your word. A lot of times we don't intentionally mean to deceive someone but when we don't keep our word, it is deceptive just the same. This pertains to every single area of our lives. From something simple like telling our children that we will be there to read to them at a certain time. We need to do it because we said we would. Or when we sign up for Bible study and commit to attending and showing up with our work done. We need to do it because we said we'd do it. If we tell our children's minister that we're going to be there to volunteer, we need to do it because we said we were going to do it.

Now, I understand sometimes life gets in the way and sometimes things happen and we can't do everything that we say we are going to do. But we do have a responsibility to follow through or make a phone call if we can't make it. We can explain even to our children why such and such didn't work out the way that we'd hoped. That teaches them not only to have grace and forgiveness but it also teaches them that life sometimes happens and things don't go exactly the way we planned. There are life lessons in all of this.

As we let Christ live in us and as we are ambassadors for Him, our role is to present to a watching world someone who is as honest, trustworthy, hard-working, faithful and dedicated as possible.

Now, I also want you to remember that it's not in our own strength that we do these things but it's Christ working in us providing the power and the strength and the will to do as He has called us to do.  

Today's Challenge

My challenge to you today is to follow through on something that you promised.  If it's something that you've already dropped the ball on, go back and make it right. Or if it's something in the future that you promised to do - and maybe you are starting to think even right now, "I can't pull that off," either make the phone call and let someone know, or drop something else and do what you said you're going to do.

Remember you're strengthened by His word.  Get out there and let it live in you and through you so that you can shine for Jesus Christ today. 

I pray that you're blessed as you walk to the study and I look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow as we fix our minds on Christ. 

If you'd like to watch the video devotion, click here:

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