WHO I AM IN CHRIST VS THE FALSE SELF

Yesterday’s devotion from Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations is still in my mind.  He said, “The false self is all the things we pretend to be and think we are.  It is the pride, arrogance, title, costume, role, and degree we take to be ourselves.  It’s almost entirely created by our minds, our cultures, and our families…. We have to undercut the illusion right at the beginning, and when we do that, we discover the True Self ‘hidden with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3:3).”  I love Paul’s key theological theme of participatory theology in Colossians, and Rohr has it right.

The new Christian Colossians, mainly Gentiles, had been infiltrated by false teachers who challenged the sufficiency of Jesus.  [Note: Much false teaching appeals to our failure to accept the sufficiency of Christ for us.  Rather than humbly and thankfully surrendering to the grace of God, it is my “natural” tendency to think that I need to prove my worthiness, self-worth.  That never works.]  The false teaching at Colossae advocated special times and types of worship, some which involved asceticism (see 2:8-23).  Such practices may look wise and humble, but have no value (2:23); that is, such practices do not transform a person spiritually, which is what Paul wants for them (see his prayer, 1:9-12).  He wants them to be “empowered in all power according to the might of his [God’s] glory” (1:11).  How?  By recognizing that when they are reconciled to Christ by faith, they are “in Christ” and Christ participates in them.

Paul’s first premise is that in Christ dwells the fullness of God so that Christ has supremacy over all things, including all spiritual and earthly powers and principalities (1:15-20).  Paul’s second premise is that those who have received Jesus as Lord have Christ in them (1:27; 2:6).  These images abound; believers are: reconciled to Christ, rooted in, are his body, circumcised in, baptized with, died with, alive with, raised with, hidden with, etc.  Participatory theology!

If Christians actualized their true self in Christ, that in Christ we are seated above all the “powers and principalities” that pull us down, then we will be empowered to “put to death” our false selves and all that is unclean in us, put on our true selves, and live godly lives (3:1-14).

Lord, may I truly recognize, imbibe, and live out who I am in You.  Amen.