I am currently teaching through the book of Colossians. Oh friend I could write for days on the beauty of the truths discovered and revealed in the first two verses alone! I love this book. It is so very relevant to our present times.
I always begin my journey into teaching a new study by reading the entire book that I will be digging into several times before I even open the study guide. I was doing this one afternoon while I was waiting during our youngest daughter’s gymnastics practice. She began taking gymnastics this past August.
For a little background, we only allowed our two youngest children to focus on one sport because they also are involved in music and theatre. The sport our two youngest chose was softball. However, several years ago our Bekah began to desire to be a gymnast. We told her she needed to be sure, because once she began gymnastics, softball was over. She would be forsaking softball and turning only to gymnastics.
After wavering a couple of years, this past summer she hung up her cleats and picked up a leotard. She began gymnastics at eleven years old only knowing how to do a cartwheel, but we have watched her passion grow and increase for the sport. She practices every day… in the house… in the yard… we actually have had to get on to her to stand on her feet and not her hands when we are in public.
Even though she was now capable of these wowing stunts, there was something missing. Her heart still craved something to validate that she was indeed a real gymnast. The ability to walk on her hands and do back flips and splits and turn on a balance beam simply were not enough. There are many that can do those things, but they are not gymnasts.
Then it happened.
I saw her face as she was opening the door. I am sitting there reading through Colossians and she, grinning ear to ear, jumps in the car and gleefully says, “Momma, look at my hands!”
“Momma, look at my hands! I got my first rips! Now I am a real gymnast!”
It wasn’t the ability to do the tricks that made her a gymnasts. It was the ability to be torn in the process and yet persevere and come back for more. It was the scars that she would bear on her body for all to see when she couldn’t do the tricks that would prove that she was indeed a gymnast.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.
Colossians 1:24
Having just read this passage of Scripture, I asked her to show me her hands again so that I could take a picture of them. I felt this moment of hers was a beautiful illustration of what Paul wrote to not just the saints in Colosse, but also to the saints in Rome, and in Galatia.
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
Romans 8:16-17
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From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.
Galatians 6:17
When we go back to the very beginning of the church this was the frame of mind of all who believed in Jesus. If they were really His… they did not cry “woe as me” in their suffering for His name. No they instead rejoiced in their suffering.
So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.
Acts 5:41
This is why when Jesus was here He said, “You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). Then in Matthew 24:13 He warns, “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.” In the parable of the sower and the seed He taught, “The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away” (Matthew 13:20:21).
You see my Bekah knew that a real gymnast was one that persevered through the pain of the rips. A real gymnast didn’t quit because they couldn’t just do the fun flips and tricks. A real gymnast had to learn to fall and to stretch and to grab hold of that bar again even when their hands are torn and sore.
Jesus proclaimed the same. A real believer would bear the scars. A real believer would be one who followed Jesus in the perseverance of their faith. A real believer was not just one that could do cool tricks and talk in flips and spin pretty words. A real believer was one who rejoiced and counted it all joy when their hands bore the rips of holding tightly to the raised bar of genuine faith in Christ.
A real believer would be one who learned how to fall and to be stretched and yet jump up and go again because from each trial they would grow. With each trial wisdom would come. With each trial our faith becomes even more firm and resolute. Not unlike my daughters hands… those rips will build callousness. Those rips though painful now will make her hands more strong, her skin more thick, and through them her hands will be able to bear up under more and more pressure allowing her to do more than she ever imagined she physically could.
Oh beloved of God… Can’t you just see our Jesus running up to His Father and saying “Father, look at my hands!” We know that He turned to Thomas who doubted and said, “see My hands” (John 20:27). Jesus persevered, even to the point of death on a cross.
Oh beloved are we willing to forsake all other things and pour all our passion into the One Thing matters? Are we willing to turn our backs to the world and our face to the Son and follow Him no matter the cost. He was willing to do it for us, might we honor Him by being willing to do the same.
Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
James 1:12