Christ in you
Sunday 11th December 2022
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:27 (NIV)
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
It sounds good, a nice thing to have: ‘Christ in you.’ But what does it really mean? What does it mean to have ‘Christ in you’? And who, anyway, is this Christ that some people have in them?
Paul has already told the Colossians to whom he is writing just who this Christ is: he is “the image of the invisible God” (verse 15), the one who is “before all things” (verse 17), “in [whom] all things were created” (verse 16) and “in [whom] all things hold together” (verse 17), the one for whom “all things have been created” (verse 16), in whom “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell” (verse 19). That is some Christ!
It is well worth going back through that list, reading each phrase slowly and pondering what it means. For example, we are literally held together, minute by minute, by this Christ. We cannot live a single second without him, whether we recognise that or not.
Again, there is no more of God to be known than the God we meet in Christ. There is more of God to be known, of course there is, but we won’t meet him anywhere else than in Christ. And that’s how God wants it to be.
The point is, if you’re a Christian, this is the Christ who is “in you.” And what more could you want, not only as your possession but actually dwelling in you, than the eternal co-creator, sustainer and heir of all things?
And so we can reflect on all the things other people have, the things we long for, the things that have never come our way, the things that will never be ours, and say quietly yet confidently to ourselves, “It doesn’t matter, because I have Christ.”
Lord, I thank you that whatever I may not have, I have Christ, and I would not exchange him for anything. Amen.
Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)