Colossians 3:12-14 says,
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love [emphasis mine], which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Lots of us like rules. Rules are easy to follow. Rules let’s us know where the boundaries are and how far is too far. Rules give us limits. Lots of us don’t like rules. Rules have to be followed. Rules box us in. Rules give us limits.
Virtues are wide open. We can choose how virtuous we want to be and we can choose which virtues we want to exhibit at a given time. Virtues don’t have boundaries, don’t have limits and aren’t always easy to incorporate into our life because it’s our choice. Paul gives us a list of virtues we can choose from instead of giving us rules. You see, rules are just rules and following rules doesn’t lead to holy living because we are simply doing what we are told. Virtues, those are choices and they lead to holy living because we are making a choice to be a disciple when we display virtues.
Paul wraps up by leading us to the greatest virtue; to put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity. We can be given rules on how to live or God can simply lead us to live in love so that we do things that are in accordance with his will and exemplify what Jesus taught in word and action while on earth. If we follow the rules, we can become robotic If we learn to put on love, we do whatever we do because our heart is closer to God’s heart. He doesn’t want robotics, he wants children created in his image who choose to live in his perfect will for us.
That cannot happen if we are simply following a set of rules but it occurs when we live in love.
Love spurs us to live a virtuous life. Love spurs us to allow God to live through us and in us. Love spurs us to see things through the eyes of God, to hear things through the ears of God, to say things with the love of God. When we put on love, we put on God because God is love.
Jeff Jones
Jeff I love your comments. The insight the Holy Spirit gave you into this passage helped me. Love is the virtue that makes all others fall into place!
ReplyDelete