Reflections on LifeSample

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. (Col 3:16 NIV)

This piece of Scripture is often used to talk about what our individual or corporate worship should look like. I don’t think that was its intention.

The writer is telling us that the message about and from Jesus, that is, the gospel, should have free reign in our lives. “Let... [it] have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives” is how the Message Bible (3:15-17 MSG) puts it here.

And we demonstrate this new-found life-with-God by teaching and encouraging each other ‘using good common sense’ (MSG), and by singing our grateful hearts out about our life now centred in Christ.

This is the life-changing rich message of Christ to we who follow him, and it’s sustained and demonstrated to others by we who are part of the community of faith looking out for each other and singing praises together to God – in whatever format we choose.

This is life-transforming living. This is the only way we will overcome racial and ethnic prejudice, get creation back on track, change the unhelpful life-denying habits of our past and present, flourish in the midst of wars and floods, and know that “Christ is all, and is in all” (Col 3:1-20) deeply enough for it to make a difference in how we think and live.

This isn’t a Scripture about how to worship. It’s about how we relate to others in the community of faith. It’s part of a life-renewing admonition to take seriously what Jesus achieved on the cross and in the resurrection and to make a difference in and to our world: and to sing about that.

Prayer:

God our creator, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ
and the only one who can sustain us as the flourishing human beings we were created to be;
in our gratitude for what you have made possible for us,
and in our struggle to do what is right,
cause us to take seriously the transforming and confronting work of the gospel within us
so that we might engage in transformative relationships and together sing our praises to you as we encourage one another. Amen.