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The will of God is that the all-inclusive, extensive Christ be our portion, our life, our constituent, and our peace—1:9, 12; 3:4, 10-11, 15:
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In 1:9 God’s will refers to Christ; the will of God is profound in relation to our knowing, experiencing, and living in the all-inclusive, extensive Christ.
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God’s will for us is that we would know Christ, experience Christ, enjoy Christ, be saturated with Christ, and have Christ become our life and person—3:4, 10-11; Eph. 3:16-17.
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God’s will is that we, having the all-inclusive, extensive Christ, should walk in Him—Col. 2:6-7:
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To walk in Christ is to live, act, behave, and have our being in Him.
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As we walk in Christ, we will be rooted in Him to have downward growth and be built up to have upward growth—vv. 6-7.
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We should estimate and evaluate everything according to the all-inclusive, extensive Christ—v. 8:
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Christ is the governing principle of all genuine wisdom and knowledge, the reality of all genuine teaching, and the only measure of all concepts acceptable to God.
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Only when we have a clear view of the place of the all-inclusive, extensive Christ in God’s economy will we be able to see through delusion and deception.
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We need to be infused, saturated, and permeated with the all-inclusive, extensive Christ until in our experience He is everything to us—1:27; 2:16-17; 3:4, 10-11:
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The all-inclusive, extensive Christ is in us, but we need to see Him, know Him, be filled with Him, be saturated with Him, and be absolutely one with Him.
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We should allow the all-inclusive, extensive Christ to fill our whole being and to replace our culture with Himself—Eph. 3:17a; Col. 3:10-11:
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The more Christ replaces our natural life and culture with Himself, the more we will be able to declare, “To live is Christ”; to us, to live will be the Christ who takes full possession of us, occupies us, and fills us with Himself—Phil. 1:21a.
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The all-inclusive, extensive Christ desires to replace every element of our natural life and culture with Himself so that we may be the one new man as His corporate expression; this is the message of the book of Colossians—3:10-11.
Morning Nourishment
Col. 2:8 Beware that no one carries you off as spoil through his philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.3:10-11 ...Put on the new man, which is being renewed unto full knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where...Christ is all and in all.
[In Colossians 2:8] the expression “according to Christ” is very important. It indicates that everything should be estimated and evaluated according to Christ. As we consider ourselves, our families, situations, and environment, we should evaluate them, not according to the tradition of men, but according to Christ. (Life-study of Colossians, p. 292)
Today’s Reading
In Colossians 2:4 Paul specifically refers to “persuasive speech.” Usually those who deceive others are eloquent and persuasive in speech. Beware of eloquence.... Instead of being taken in by a speaker’s eloquence, we should ask if there is reality in his speaking.Sister M. E. Barber helped Brother Nee to learn this important lesson. When he was young,... Brother Nee thought that a certain preacher’s message was marvelous, and he was confident that Sister Barber would agree. Nevertheless, Sister Barber still pointed out that the message was void of life and reality. From that time onward, Brother Nee no longer appreciated the empty speech of eloquent preachers. May we also learn not to be deluded by persuasive speech.
No doubt, when the serpent approached Eve in the garden, he spoke in a very refined way. Be on the alert lest you are deluded through the persuasive speech of cultured people. Only when we have a clear view of the place of the all-inclusive Christ in God’s economy shall we be able to see through delusion and deception.
Fallen man uses culture as a substitute for God. First, such a culture is a substitute for God. Then Christ comes in to replace this substitute with Himself. Since we are no longer children, we need Christ to replace every element of our culture. This does not mean that we should despise culture. Rather, it means that we should love Christ. If we are filled to the brim with Christ, there will not be any room in our being for anything else. Every part of us will be occupied by Christ and with Christ. Then in our experience we shall have the fullness of Christ.... The Christ who fills our being will replace our culture with Himself. This is the revelation in the book of Colossians.... Christ, the extensive One, must replace every element of our natural human life. In the church as the new man, there is no room for any kind of natural person. In the new man Christ must be all and in all (3:11).
We should neither hate our natural being nor treasure it.... Instead of trying to hate the natural being [which is to practice asceticism], we should follow the Lord’s word to deny ourselves. To deny the self is to ignore the self, to forget it, to pay no attention to it.... Instead of either hating the self or loving it, we should simply refuse to pay attention to it.
However, if we would keep from paying attention to the self, we must concentrate on something better than the self. This is the reason we need a vision of the extensiveness of Christ.... If we see this vision, we shall concentrate our entire being on the extensive Christ, who will then fill us and occupy us. Because we are filled with the extensive Christ, we shall have no need of Judaism, Gnosticism, mysticism, or asceticism. Our being will be occupied with the vast, unsearchably rich, extensive Christ. Spontaneously this Christ will come in to replace every aspect of our natural human life with Himself. (Life-study of Colossians, pp. 172-174, 426-428)
Further Reading: Life-study of Colossians, msgs. 32, 34-36, 39, 21, 26, 28-29, 49