Today I am excited. Here is an understanding of the Spirit for you my brothers and sisters. This is an understanding of the ongoing reconciliation to the Father as parts of the body of Christ which you are now a part. There is a wonderful insight to be explained to you, that comes to me by guidance from the Holy Spirit and bases on Paul's letter to the believers in Colossae.
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Colossians 1:24
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Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
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'What is still lacking'. By the redeeming quality of the blood of the Son of God, we are forgiven of sin. But what is not explained clearly is, that each one of us that is of the body of Christ, those who were called by the Lord, we carry on the task of reconciliation, a task that Jesus began.
Sin itself is constantly expanding because of the Law of sin. And grace under the blood of the Lamb is pursuing this expansion with an expansion of its own. The 'what is still lacking', is the sin that is identified through each believer, as the branches of sin they themselves have been forgiven through their repent.
I am sharing this example to explain this with clarity: Paul was Saul. Saul was an exceptional Jew with authority granted to him. He was proud of his position, and took his authority seriously. He jailed and hunted down Jews who the Temple saw as rebels, namely those who saw Jesus as the Messiah. His pride was his empowerment, and he did his job well. When Christ Jesus came to Saul, everything that Saul had pride in became everything he needed to repent. As Paul, he then began anew, and he lot in the ministry of the Gospel of Truth, was bearing fruit worthy of his repentance. So, through Paul, the sin of pride became the his way of supplying 'what was still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions'.
Of each of us, that have been called by the Lord, we have been given the same charge, the same duty. We can bear fruit worthy of our repentance, which has reconciled us the the Father through the atoning quality of the blood of His Son. There is certainly something you did that you repented, that is your duty to overcome with the grace afforded you. And faith in that duty, is an extension of the body of Christ you are now a part of.
Paul suffered in the humbling realization that his human pride had taken on such a role as the enemy of good. And his sufferance led him to make amends by leading those he once persecuted to the Lord. So as he once boasted of his heritage, he now only boasted in his faithful works and denial of his human label.
For me, my vanity is what I deny. My vanity led to all kinds of harm and cruelties that in the end nearly cost me my life. So now I work to produce fruit worthy of my repentance of that vanity. I openly minister about selflessness, and I proclaim I am nothing without the Lord. I suffer my previous self, so I may further the understanding of love and faith for the Lord's sake as a part of his body. Like Paul, this is my way of supplying 'what was still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions'.
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1 Colossians 1:5,6
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the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel
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that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.
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The 'hope stored up for you in heaven', is that the love and faith you show in producing fruit worthy of the repentance you made, will bring us all closer to the fullness of grace which glorifies the authority the Father placed in His Son.
So I ask you, what did you repent? What was still lacking in the afflictions of Christ, that your sin represented? If you do not know, I lead you to prayer. The Holy Spirit can and will certainly guide you into understanding.
To carry forward in sufferance, denying what it was that was leading you to death, this is what makes you unique in the body of Christ. And it is important to produce fruit worthy of that denial of it in you.
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