“Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God!”
Colossians 3:16-17, The Message
At times, there has to be a forceful unity in us and through us. The idea of “tuning” yourself to someone else is a bit rattling, and even scary. “What if they are confused, or indifferent?” There exists a real fear of combining our hearts with another. It is a special challenge in our culture that stresses individual rights. We think ‘me’ when we should be thinking ‘we.’ We need to fall in step with someone else.
There also exists a need for us to cultivate thankfulness and gracefulness. To be blunt, this is not an easy thing. It is most hard. Cultivation implies so much– long days of work under a hot sun. But, if it works we will take it. For many of us, this could become our very next step in our discipleship.
This passage in Colossians seems to emphasize our real need to let the Word run furiously throughout our lives. I have watched “The Running of the Bulls” in Pamplona. We are being chased. But what I have seen is both beautiful and frightening. The Book of Colossians can be like this. So many challenges, and yet also very wonderful ones.
God’s Word however, is penultimate, it is to be supreme. It simply demands total control of us. We are charged in these verses, to let the Word go crazy in our lives. But it can’t rest stagnant and alone. Rather we are to become belligerent and insistent voices that directs everything to Him. We stand, and then we reflect all of the glory to Jesus.
We learn in these two verses on the need for us to sing. Singing can be something we grind out. A great deal of effort exists before we can really make this take place. But I still don’t think this is what the Apostle Paul has in mind. Music is bound to happen inside our hearts. We are to become saints of praise– singing saints.
Dear one, be a believer that sings. Find your voice, and then lift it up to Him. If you have come to this point, I must believe you have truly understood His exceptional grace to you. But we also need to sing for our brothers. Countless times I have been encouraged by the songs coming from my companions of this amazing journey.
Broken Believers 