Jesus is Greater.

I know you hear so much of the noise going on in the world around you. You hear the marketplace wanting your time at work. You hear relationships begging to be poured into. You hear the cancel culture. You hear advertising battling for your last dollar. You hear the government prodding and poking you. So many things are telling you they are the hope for your future. But we all know, Jesus is the only hope we can count on.

In Colossians 2, Paul is reminding us, as Jesus-followers, there are some things we can do to stay focused, to stay ready, to stay anchored. He tells us in his fatherly voice, “I don’t want you to be deceived…” Paul is telling us that there are a lot of voices who will tell you they know what’s best, they know the best answer…just listen to them. But Paul wants to remind us how we stay grounded in the avalanche of information we currently experience in our culture.

Take look at Colossians 2:6-7. Paul is telling us how we can overcome the pressure to follow other voices.

Paul calls us into a real relationship with Jesus. You remember the first time you met your best friend? You may have hit it off right away but it wasn’t a real relationship yet. Those take years to develop. You must experience highs and lows together. You have to journey a while together. You build trust and faith in each other over time. Paul is saying, that’s how it is with Jesus. You must make a decision to live a lifetime with Jesus and develop the real relationship. As you journey, the trust you put in Jesus will prove that He is the only one in which you can hope.

Paul also wants us to think about agriculture and construction. “Let your roots grow down into Jesus…and build your life on him.” Paul is reminding us again, it takes time to gain what you hope for. There is a process to building a house and planting 40 acres. It will take months before either come to fruition. So it is with Jesus. And as Kingdom people, Paul is admonishing us to embrace the process.

In the church at Colossae, they had settled for a transactional moment. Paul calls us to live a transformational life. There is no doubt, each of us have a transaction with Jesus. We give him our past mistakes and he gives us grace, mercy, and forgiveness. But after that moment, our lives are continually transformed into one that looks more and more like Jesus’ life. Transformation is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight.

The church at Colossae had also settled for Jesus as an accessory. Paul calls us to make Jesus a priority. Jesus can’t just be part of your life. Jesus must BE your life. So many of us mistakenly listen to the cultural voices around us and choose it as our savior. We move the cross over and take our career and building wealth as the savior. Or we take our relationships with our kids or our marriage as the thing that will make us right. Or we allow our fear and anxiety take over our life. Or we believe a new president will be the answer and savior. But there is only one savior and his name is Jesus.

So Paul reminds us to focus on Jesus. Grow your roots down deeply into the Son of God. Build your life on the foundation of the King of kings. It’s then you will find everything you hoped for in this life and the next. Blessings on your journey.

Cancel the Noise.

We live in a culture with lots of noise. There is always something vying for our attention. We’ve endured the noise created by COVID-19. With this virus, we’ve felt the loss of our heath and some all the way to death. We’ve felt the loss of community whether with our family, friends, or faith group. We’ve felt the loss of our income and any wealth we had stored up.

The noise from the recent tumultuous election cycle has been very loud. We have a new president who is in the process of changing things from the prior administration. And I don’t think the noise from the last administration is gone either. Just yesterday, I saw a large group by the roadside waving Trump flags and it’s March.

The noise from all the recent natural disasters has been prominent. Whether it’s the recent snow-maggedon here in Texas to the number of wildfires out west or the hurricanes to our south to the tornados in the south. We’ve been devastated and wrecked.

As a nation, we’ve lost our moral compass. The noise from the media and social media is overwhelming. For those who follow Christ, gird your loins. It’s time to take a stand for Jesus. I pray for my grandchildren and their children. They are going to have to stand for Jesus like I never had to.

All this noise in our culture is pulling our attention, our eyes, our focus off the one thing that matters and that is Jesus Christ. He is and will always be our only hope for a better tomorrow and having a life to it’s fullest capacity.

Paul wants to reiterate that idea in his letter to the church in Colossae in the New Testament. Paul opens that letter describing an incredible Jesus to a church lost in the noise of their culture some 2000 years ago. They are not too different than we are. The Colossian Church had two groups. One group leaned into the magical and mysterious side of spiritualism. They loved Jesus but said there was also something more. It was an unknown knowledge and if you could tap into it, you’d be closer to God. The other group were legalist who said if you just say the right things, wear the right things, go to the right places, discipline your body a certain way, you’d have a connection to our Heavenly Father.

Paul tells them they are both wrong. The only thing they need to do is fix their eyes on Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of their faith. Paul describes Jesus as God and supreme over all things. There is no one and no thing greater than Jesus. He only will connect you to God the Father. He alone is who our focus is. No secret knowledge and no ascetic lifestyle will save you. It’s Jesus.

Paul goes on to tell us Jesus is creator and holds all things together. It’s Jesus creating all things. There is nothing above, on or under the earth that King Jesus has not touched. And because of that, he alone is holding together our fractured nation, our marriages, our kids, our health, our churches. Only Jesus can hold it and make it right again.

Jesus is also undefeated. There is no other things seen or unseen that can proclaim that. Jesus has conquered the grave and death. He’s already won the battles and the war. Because he is an overcomer, those of us found in him are also overcomers. Be conquering all things, Jesus also became our reconciler. It’s through Jesus that we are one with the Father. Jesus came to make things right. It’s at the foot of his cross that we know our brokenness can be healed.

And finally, the age old question, “What’s my purpose?” Jesus is your purpose. You can be awesome at sports, grind out the 9-5, be an wonderful parent but if you aren’t doing life to the glory of God, it’s all a waste. We were made by him and FOR him. My purpose is to lift up the Name of Jesus everyday in my life. Giving him glory in all I do and say.

So, don’t be distracted by our current culture. Don’t let the voices tell you one thing or another. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Let him cancel the noise around you so you focus on his saving, peaceful voice. Blessings on the journey.