Gospel in the Everyday

And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it please the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

And you, who were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled." Colossians 1:18-21, New King James Version

"It is a wonderful experience," baubles The Seven Storey Mountain" by Thomas Merton, "to discover a new saint. For God is greatly magnified and marvelous in each one of His saints: differently in each individual one."

Paul's declaration in Colossians 1:18-21 offers similar continuity of continuity. In a sense, he is coming off of a theological high of one of the sweetest Christ-exalting passages in Scripture. Yet his tone isn't, "Okay, now back to you pale and frustrating reflections of that glory." As real as he sees and teaches that the challenges facing Christians are, Paul insists that they are continuing expression of the same Christ character in which he exults when he steps away into his prayer closet, and the Holy Spirit allows us to peak in in Scripture.

What a powerful statement it would make to our own quickly distracted and embittered hearts for us to declare to a brother or sister in Christ, "I see the ongoing power of the Gospel in you!" Or, even more specifically, as the Holy Spirit still promises to bring God's Word to our remembrance, as He does so with our morning reading in the midday interaction, to apply it where we see it at work and someone else's life. Mental walls of demarcation very useful to the enemy of our souls would come crashing down between our theological meditations and our everyday, human interactions.

Whatever evidence we see, then, that other humans have still to grow into the exact likeness of Christ, ours is to declare them RECONCILED. Ours is to celebrate what has already happened by His blood and power. Ours is to remind anyone listening that the principles of the New Testament are still unfolding before us. Life, even on a Thursday, is discovery.

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