A consuming idea …

Have you ever had a thought, an idea, a desire, a project, or maybe a person that at some point just seemed to be all-consuming to you?

You might think back to when you first met and were getting to know your spouse. The better you got to know them, the more you couldn’t seem to think of much else than the next time you could spend time with them.

One reviewer tells of a movie in which a character had an “all-consuming” experience:

“In the movie “The Man Who Invented Christmas,” Charles Dickens is facing financial hardship after the failure of his latest three books following Oliver Twist. At a certain point in the film, Dickens becomes so obsessed with the new book he’s writing that he begins to become consumed by the story. The papers he writes on are all over his office and home, he constantly talks about the story with his family, he falls asleep thinking about the story, and he wakes up with it on his mind.”

Have you ever experienced being “consumed” like that?

That’s similar to the how the Apostle Paul says Jesus Christ should be to us. Paul floats this thought in a passing manner, it’s just a simple bridge between thoughts as he’s making his overall point. First, he writes this:

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God,” Colossians 3:1-3.

Paul wants to complete that thought and move to the next by writing, “And when Christ … is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory,” which is part of Colossians 3:4.

What is a golden insight is just four words that serve as a bridge in completing verse 4. Those words are, “… who is your life …” The complete verse reads like this:

“And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.”

In those four words, dropped in almost as a passing comment, we learn from Paul that Jesus isn’t just a consuming idea or Person to us, He IS our LIFE!

He’s not just the source of our existence (He is, Col. 1:16), and He’s not just the source of our new life, which Paul references in verse 3, but He IS our life. When we are born again, the Holy Spirit works at transforming us to become more and more like Jesus until He is fully formed in us:

“So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord — who is the Spirit — makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image,” 2 Corinthians 3:18.

Paul would write to the Ephesians that this spiritual formation would continue until “… we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ” (Eph. 4:13b).

It isn’t that we become consumed by Christ, but that Christ becomes fully formed in us or, as Paul’s passing comment reveals, “… Christ, who is your life …”

What would it mean to say, “My life is Jesus”?

That’s the kind of discipleship Paul points us to.

Is Jesus your life?

Scotty