Thursday, July
26, 2018
You learned
about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker. He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is
helping us on your behalf. He
has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you. So we have not stopped praying for you since
we first heard about you. We ask God to
give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and
understanding. Then
the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will
produce every kind of good fruit. All
the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. Colossians 1:7-10(NLT)
In the Walt Disney animated
movie Lion King[2]
Mufasa is teaching his son, Prince Simba all about life. One of the taglines is: The greatest adventure of all is finding our
place in the circle of life.[3] Simba is told to respect the
antelope. Confused, Simba questions
Mufasa: Um, Dad, don’t we EAT the
antelope? Dad agrees, but then
reminds his cub that lions also die and return to the ground to become the grass
antelopes eat. This is the circle of
life.
Mufasa’s wisdom aside (after
all, there are holes in his metaphysics – just ask Rafiki, the baboon who plays
the shaman clergy seer if there is more to it than blood, sinew and bones
returning to the ground); well…aside from the Lion King’s life-circle lesson,
there is a spiritual circle of life that Paul
holds up for us in his letter to the Colossian believers.
Paul had done much work at
Colossae, bringing pagans to Christ. Epaphras,
at Paul’s direction, had been dispatched to the region to help form the new
church after Paul left. Epaphras
reported back to Paul that the believers there were growing in their love for
God and service to people. In responding
Paul shared his joy at their growth, and how he was praying daily for their continued
growth in understanding God’s Word, so they would bear even greater fruit for
the kingdom.
In so many ways this is the
Christian, or spiritual circle of life.
The Gospel is shared, a seed is planted.
One comes alongside to nurture that seed of faith, as it grows into a
fruitful Kingdom vine.
It was that way for me (and
probably you). My parents loved Jesus
and his church. They passed this love
along to me. Even in my far
country Prodigal son days, I could run far from God, but never out
from under Mom and Dad’s prayers. In due
time the faith seedling survived the storm, began to grow on the bread of life,
and began to bear fruit.
When your faith survives
adolescence, and you begin to exhibit the signs of maturing, the circle of life
ceases to be linear…just passed down from leader to follower; it commences
bending in an arc to reach wider and deeper.
I’m not just a son, brother, cousin, and uncle…I am a father,
grandfather, and…heaven help me…great-grandfather! At my age I can’t help looking back; it’s been
a lot of years since the faith once-delivered to the saints[4]
was first told to me at my mother’s knee.
That faith was deepened in Sunday School every week. It was sharpened in worship, tested in the
world, and began to bear fruit as the Spirit worked within to change and grow a
seedling into something fit for the Owner of the Vineyard to use.
This is the circle of true
life. It’s not the jungle, or the
African plain, eating and being eaten; this is the surrender of the soul, dying
to self, living in Christ.
In the movie, Simba the
young lion king had ducked out on his responsibility to actually BE king. Simba was rebuked by Rafiki (the baboon
preacher). Rafiki told Simba to think
about the circle of life, then reminded him:
You have become less than you ARE!
That is a challenge to change…to
look up and BE changed.
For You Today
We all need a Rafiki to
remind us to be what God is calling us to be.
So, let’s have Paul’s benediction ring in our ears today:
We ask God to
give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and
understanding. Then
the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will
produce every kind of good fruit. All
the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. Colossians 1:7-10(NLT)
Go to VIDEO
[1] Title Image: I, Hot Dog Wolf [GFDL, from Wikimedia
Commons
No comments:
Post a Comment