Colossians 2:6-8 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ.
Reflection Yesterday we read Bonhoeffer saying that, rather than seeing God as the explanation of the things we don’t know, we are to find God in what we do know. But this still leaves the question as to what place God has in our thinking and, indeed, our daily living. In other words, how central is God to the lives we live as Christians? From his prison cell on 30th April 1944 Bonhoeffer wrote ‘I should like to speak of God not at the boundaries but at the centre, not in weakness but in strength’ A month later he expressed this more strongly when saying, ‘God…must recognized be at the centre of life, not when we are at the end of our resources; it is his will to be recognised in life, and not only when death comes; in health and vigour, and not only in suffering; in our activities and not only in sin. The ground for this lies in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. He is the centre of life…’
How do we ensure that Christ really is central to our lives and not simply one element amongst many? How do we sustain and deepen our relationship with Christ amidst all the demands on our time and our energy? How do we even remember Christ day by day? (In a book on prayer, Simon Tugwell wrote, ‘Forgetfulness is the root of all evil. In our relationship with God, one of the main problems is that half the time we just forget about it.’) To maintain and deepen our relationships with other people takes time and effort, but we only take the time and make the effort if we really want to deepen them. Do we really want to deepen our relationship with God through Christ? If we do, are we willing to take the time and make the effort? And, if we are, how do we do it?
Prayer Gracious God, we thank you for revealing yourself most clearly and completely in Jesus Christ. Increase our desire to deepen our relationship with you through him and help us to find ways of doing this, for our own good and the good of other people. Amen.
Today’s writer
The Revd John Matthews is a retired Baptist minister and member of Wellingborough URC.
