40 Days of Praise - Day 6
Day 6
“And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Colossians 1:17
If you’ve been following these devotionals, you’ve noticed that we have focused on verses from Colossians chapter 1. Verse 15 spoke of Jesus as the image of the invisible God. Jesus of Nazareth was more than He seemed. People saw a boy who became a man. They were unaware that God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, had joined the human race.
Verse 17 begins with a reminder that Jesus is before all things, that He is preeminent. That’s the meaning of firstborn in this passage. The second statement in this verse is what I’d like us to think about: “in him all things hold together.”
When we’re talking about God, it’s not shocking that the Creator is the one who holds all things together. But in this context we're not just thinking of God, but of Jesus, a Jewish man who was turned on by the spiritual leaders of His people and handed over to the Romans, who executed Him as a criminal in the most painful way known. This Jesus, the one with nail prints in his hands and feet, the one with the wound in His side, this Jesus who was rejected by His own people and seen as powerless when He was stripped, beaten, forced to carry his own cross, and then crucified upon it – it is in this Jesus that all things hold together.
When He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, in Him all things held together. When He was sitting at the temple at age 12, in conversation with the rabbis and the scribes, in Him all things were being held together. And when they were driving the spikes into His wrists and into His feet, in Him, all things were being held together.
It’s difficult to find words for the level of astonishment. How could this one who was fully human and yet fully divine maintain the cohesion of the universe as He dealt with the experiences of His humanity? How could He continue to compel every electron to orbit the nucleus of every molecule as he cried, “I thirst“?
Truly, Jesus was more than just a man. We have become accustomed through the years to saying that He is both God and man. But seldom do we contemplate what that means in the light of passages like this. Our Lord is beyond our understanding, beyond our imagination, beyond our ability to conceive.
There is none like Him.
He elicits our adoration. He commands our reverence. He evokes our love.
“And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Colossians 1:17
If you’ve been following these devotionals, you’ve noticed that we have focused on verses from Colossians chapter 1. Verse 15 spoke of Jesus as the image of the invisible God. Jesus of Nazareth was more than He seemed. People saw a boy who became a man. They were unaware that God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, had joined the human race.
Verse 17 begins with a reminder that Jesus is before all things, that He is preeminent. That’s the meaning of firstborn in this passage. The second statement in this verse is what I’d like us to think about: “in him all things hold together.”
When we’re talking about God, it’s not shocking that the Creator is the one who holds all things together. But in this context we're not just thinking of God, but of Jesus, a Jewish man who was turned on by the spiritual leaders of His people and handed over to the Romans, who executed Him as a criminal in the most painful way known. This Jesus, the one with nail prints in his hands and feet, the one with the wound in His side, this Jesus who was rejected by His own people and seen as powerless when He was stripped, beaten, forced to carry his own cross, and then crucified upon it – it is in this Jesus that all things hold together.
When He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, in Him all things held together. When He was sitting at the temple at age 12, in conversation with the rabbis and the scribes, in Him all things were being held together. And when they were driving the spikes into His wrists and into His feet, in Him, all things were being held together.
It’s difficult to find words for the level of astonishment. How could this one who was fully human and yet fully divine maintain the cohesion of the universe as He dealt with the experiences of His humanity? How could He continue to compel every electron to orbit the nucleus of every molecule as he cried, “I thirst“?
Truly, Jesus was more than just a man. We have become accustomed through the years to saying that He is both God and man. But seldom do we contemplate what that means in the light of passages like this. Our Lord is beyond our understanding, beyond our imagination, beyond our ability to conceive.
There is none like Him.
He elicits our adoration. He commands our reverence. He evokes our love.
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