🖊 Journaling through Colossians 2:11-22 today.

God is indeed a God of righteous order, not only organization in itself.

God does not stand for any law for law’s sake, even laws that are just.

For instance, it is just (and thus necessary) that I should die for my sin. My sin naturally leads me to death and necessarily condemns me to die. Nevertheless God finds a way through that law in Christ to bring a deeper justice, and deeper righteousness, in making me right.

The just law stands–my sinful self will die–but somehow something else mysterious and profound also happens because of Jesus: I nevertheless live on, a new creation no longer tainted by sin, healed and whole.

God will always pursue the highest good, and people getting what they deserve is–according to God’s work in Christ–not the highest good. Rather, reconciliation, and restoration are what he is after.

This is Love, and Love is the highest and deepest law!

Any law that stands in the way of that deep justice, that deep righteousness, that deep love that makes me right–God has no problem nailing it to a cross.

I find that the way to right-ness, true righteousness, is not so much a matter of what I do but who I love. The only way to overcome the indulgences of the sinful nature is cultivate a desire than runs deeper, a desire for Christ, a willingness to let go of all other things and take hold of nothing but him.

More and more I am finding that believing in Christ and his healing work of mercy in me is the only way to rest.

I do not have to fight to have Christ.

He has already been blessed, broken, given. His Spirit has been poured out in me. I already have him, and he’s all there is to life.

I already have him.

Oh God, thank you.