Recovery Devotional 272 Need to Lean on Something

JMD Devotional 272 Colossians 1:3,4 Need to Lean on Something

Compare the rendering of this pair of verses in the New International Version and the Amplified:

(NIV) We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your FAITH in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints—

(AMP) We continually give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah), as we are praying for you, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus [the leaning of your entire human personality on Him in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness] and of the love which you [have and show] for all the saints (God's consecrated ones),

The NIV is adequate, and less laborious to read, but in order to really know what Paul meant by ‘faith’ I would have had to go to my Hebrew-Greek study Bible, look up “faith (Strong #) 4102”, go to the index and read about the Greek word “pistis”, which is broken down into persuasion, credence, conviction of the truth…esp reliance upon Christ for salvation, constancy in such profession, assurance, belief, faith, fidelity…); the AMP saves me a lot of time by putting the essence of this in the brackets ‘[ ]’. In reality, I am too lazy to look up every word, so without this gem of a translation I would miss so much of the significance that the original languages carried.

Faith is the least understood and appreciated word in the English language. There is a lot of what passes for ‘faith’ today that Paul and the early Church would not have been thankful for. Mere intellectual assent that there is or could be a God does not quality. Quasi-association with a religious movement or denomination is no better. Faith is what you lean on and live out daily, not just what you “profess” to believe.

A universal truth is that human beings are weak and full of glaring deficits. People respond to this by propping themselves up with something. A person may lean on their ‘charm’, their heritage, appearance, social status, wealth or a false persona (i.e. unpaid comic, workaholic, playboy, self-professed expert, etc)…(this is not a exclusive list). The kind of faith worthy of the admiration of Paul and the Church is one in which a person leans their entire human personality on to Christ Jesus for support. This implies that they find their sense of self defined by their relationship to God. Here is the paradox of recognizing our weakness and becoming stronger as a result of our dependence rightly placed. Ernest Hemmingway thought he was the master of his own soul, the captain of his own destiny, in effect, his own god: and in the end he snuffed out his own life with a bullet. He could not come to terms with his finiteness and his need for a greater power. How about you?

Dear God,

I have leaned on lesser things, that have broken and injured me. My mind inverts holes into hills that I fall into when I seek to climb. My propensity to keep chasing the same illusions and mirages exposes my stubborn depravity and rebellion: why are You my last resort? Please take the reluctance out of my ‘sainthood’. Pornography does not give me any more power than sitting in a Church pew with my heart being elsewhere: make me into a singularly devoted Christian. I cannot manufacture my own integrity; but in union, I can live it out with You. Help me to be consistent, fully devoted, dependent and committed to Your kingdom and way of life. Help me to climb solid steps. I believe that my success in this is in harmony with Your desire. To God be the glory.

Amen

All (but*) quotes are from The Amplified Bible, published by

the Lockman Foundation. (AMP)

Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

*New International Version (NIV)

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

**Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. (Eugene Peterson's easy-to-read, contemporary Scripture translation)

I originally produced these blogs between 2006 and 2007, which were then published in my book, JMD Recovery Devotionals. In 2010, I am sending these out to a few people as I review them and see if my point of view has changed.

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