How is your Faithful Service to Christ!

Be a person who loves and serves, one who exhibits appreciation and faith and desires to do what it takes to put it in action.

Read Colossians 4:7-18

This passage is all about faithfulness, which is what makes a person attractive to God and others. People with friends are also persons who are friend-makers because they listen and show appreciation and are not consumed with personal issues and hurts. Being grateful while being a greeter is also what builds and grows a church. It is about leaders being faithful and members being loving and hospitable. It shows our Lord's love and makes a church a place people want to be a part of. Our faithfulness, along with the Holy Spirit's empowerment and illumination, is what carries on the work of our Lord, demonstrates His love, and shows that His message is working so others will want to be a part of it.

Our real service comes from realizing who we are in Christ and allowing our devotion to translate into application. What God wants is for us to do and move our faith—to go beyond the mindset of “I have my salvation and thus, I need to do nothing more.” This is actually true; we cannot buy more favor or work for our salvation, but we can, as these people exhibited, be faithful and devoted. Exercise your faith and take advantage of your opportunities to grow and promote Christ's Message. Faithfulness and helping one another by service and collective action is what matters to God. The more we put into our faith and come together, the more we are used to get the Gospel out. This is also about encouragement and service; it is contagious and mutually shows one another our faith while it is also displayed to those who do not know Christ. Paul and his fellow companions and coworkers, Tychicus, Onesimus, Aristarchus, Mark, Barnabas, Epaphras, Luke, Demas, Nympha, and Archippus demonstrated what it means to be mobilized to serve and sacrifice. Not only did they contribute to Paul's ministry, but they are immortalized in our Bible and in Heaven too. Our service also reflects into eternity, touching others and our Lord too!

What we need to get into our lives is this, the principles of the Gospel must impact us so we are influenced and energized by it. If the leader is not excited, the message will drop off and fall flat. The learner and hearer will not desire something irrelevant and unexciting. If they see no excitement in the leader, why would they want to be a part of it? The nature of the Christian life is the joy and excitement of being in Christ over all else, and this should be the biggest motivation so the excitement the leader receives from his growth becomes contagious to those around him; this is influence. Being in Christ means living our lives for Him with excitement in all times and all places. This is influence.

Holy living is not forced upon us. We are not adhering to a religion, but a relationship with our Lord! Holy living comes from a life that is transformed and renewed by what Christ has done for us! We can't mature in the faith by punishing ourselves, or seeking mystic or special revelations; rather it is knowing, trusting, and obeying Christ as LORD, realizing Who He is and what He has done for us and then responding in gratitude, trust, and obedience. The Colossians had a skewed idea of God's purity and our sinful nature; they had it half right, that God is pure and we are sin. However, the application that we can do as we please since we are in Christ is purely wrong. This now becomes a form of relativism. Such thinking and behavior equates a life that is meaningless and produces little to no fruit.

Questions to Ponder

1. How do you see the people in this passage exhibiting faithfulness and devotion? Do any of these people inspire you? How so?

2. What must happen in your life (assuming you are a Christian) for a deeper and more radical transformation?

3. Look back on your life, comparing how you once were with how you are living in Him now. Has there been progress? If not, what must you do?

4. How can you be challenged more to continue and complete the ministry Christ has given you?

5. How does the fact that Paul experienced strife and then was able to move to reconciliation establish a model for you?

See more here
http://www.intothyword.org/apps/articles/default.asp?articleid=54385&columnid=3803