‘so that you may live a life worthy of the LORD and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God’ (v10) Colossians 1:9–14
If we are to represent God effectively, we must first comprehend what God requires. From the point of accepting Christ, we start a journey of internal change that influences external behaviour.
At the point when I accepted Christ, I did not lose my ‘old life’ overnight. I had a new allegiance to Jesus, but I was a ‘baby in Christ’.
I didn’t have the wisdom I’ve painfully, and at times reluctantly, accumulated through life experience.
Friendship with God, like all relationships, is organic. No one sincerely embracing Christ immediately breaks with their past.
Yes, some aspects from our previous way of life may fall away suddenly; these are the first fruits confirming that a new relationship has been born.
A friend of mine cycling to school, after accepting Christ, was surrounded in the playground on arrival and asked what had happened to her?
Enquiring what they meant, they said she hadn’t sworn once, something almost out of character for her. But it was not my experience.
God invites us to take time building our friendship with Him so that we produce the fruit of the Christian life.
We have a responsibility to clothe ourselves in God’s Word so that God’s truth is evidenced through our lives.
The one reason we take time with God every day is so that we can live just such a fruitful and productive life, serving God.
RELATED SCRIPTURE TO CONSIDER: Exod. 20; Rom. 8:1–17; 13:8–14; Col. 3:5–17.
AN ACTION TO TAKE: How are you viewed by family, friends and colleagues? Are there useful adjustments you could make to help them encounter Jesus?
A PRAYER TO MAKE: ‘Lord, accompany me on my journey as I seek to grow in Christian maturity and become more like Jesus every day. Amen.’
Photo by Ivan Henao on Unsplash
