April 21: Colossians 1 1-2

Key Verse: Colossians 1 2
To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.

Devotion:
When writing this letter to the people in Colosse, Paul includes one Timothy by name but also all the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ. I used to think this brothers and sisters term was purely from American churches but it is so much more than that and, as we see here, comes from the early church which was planted by Christ and grew from the apostles taking the gospel truth out to the people where they could.

In this modern age of the internet we are not too pleased if our emails get delayed by a few minutes, never mind days or months; but during this time of the early church, they would have to depend on word being taken by sailing ships or runners from one place to another – typically this would be at least days if not months delay to get across Europe! But, even though they has this amazing delay between communications, they still remained faithful to Christ and His teachings.

If we look at the church today, we see even the smallest of churches streaming services via videos to all their people. I am blessed to be in a church who do send out videos each Sunday to bring the church together, and we are talking about minutes or even seconds delay to bring us all together as brothers and sisters in Christ. We may not be able to be in the same house, but the church can get into every home on this estate because we open the doors via the internet to invite people in.

Last week, to start our service off I went out onto the green in the middle of our estate and blasted out ‘O Happy Day’ on a portable speaker so people could join in and sing along. We want to be one big family and we are called to be such by Christ who instituted this church in person almost 2000 years ago. The Apostles (those who saw Jesus in person) took what they had learned and taught others and they in turn taught more people about the truth of Christ.

Points to Ponder:
Do you miss being able to hug your brothers and sisters in Christ – I do?

What will you do to open the virtual doors of your church this week?