Colossians 3:5-17
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew,
circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. 12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body
you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 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. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Reflection
Yesterday, we learned that we should look to Communion for insights as to how to be in community. For the rest of the week, we will look at how we can grow in that
understanding through a concept presented by Henri Nouwen in his book, Life of the Beloved, that he wrote for his friends in Christ. He uses Communion as an illustration of how we can live together in this world as the body of Christ. He says that we are all taken, blessed, broken, and given. Today we will focus on being taken which is that we are all chosen by God to be God’s beloved children. What does it mean to you to be God’s chosen and that you are holy and dearly loved? How do we look at other people knowing they are God’s chosen people no matter what we think of them?
