...the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you. Colossians1:3-6
Paul has heard about the faith and love of the Colossians. In what way would the Colossian Christians have had faith that caused people to talk about it? What kind of faith gets people talking about it?
Before we can answer that question, there is an even deeper question that must be answered:
What is the source/root/foundation of their faith?
From what Paul has observed and heard about, he comments that theirs is a faith and love that "SPRING from the hope that is stored up in heaven..."
But what does that mean?
ETERNITY.
* There is more to this life than living and dying.
* That in spite of our current brokenness, God has made us for something bigger and better.
* Life is not accidental or purposeless
* We have hope stored up in heaven
* This hope is made real for us in the gospel.
The gospel is the incredible account of God who sent His Son into the world to be with us, die for us, and rise for us so that we can be with Him.
Faith, by Paul's definition in this passage, is the life-altering conviction that we are destined for eternity - that there is meaning to life and that there is a God who gave everything to give this to us...
When faith is thus defined - it leads to a life that is hope-full, purpose-full and meaning-full.
This is the spring from which a river will flow!
When we live like this, people will talk about it!
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
