Colossians 1:18

For Reading and Meditation:     Genesis 1:1-12

We focus on what without doubt is the most noble and loftiest of themes - the nature and character of God. I have noticed that Christians, generally speaking, seem to be preoccupied with knowing more about themselves rather than knowing more about God. Ask any Christian bookshop manager: "What are the best-selling...

For Reading and Meditation:     Colossians 1:15-27

We spend one more day meditating on the text: "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." Today we ask ourselves: What did Jesus mean by the phrase, "for they will inherit the earth"? It means, so I believe, that when we develop the attitude of meekness, the whole universe is behind us. If, for...

For Reading and Meditation:     John 2:12-25

Yesterday we touched on the statement of a psychiatrist, Dr James Fisher, who said that when searching for the positive attitudes which made for good mental health, he came across the Beatitudes and realised that he need search no longer. After nearly fifty years' experience of helping people with mental, emotional and...

For Reading and Meditation:     Ephesians 4:1-16

In his autobiography, A King's Story, the Duke of Windsor told of a strange thing that happened at the funeral of his father, King George V. He described how, as his father's body was being conveyed on a draped gun carriage through the crowded streets of London, a mishap occurred which only those closest to the scene...

For Reading and Meditation:     2 Timothy 1:1-18

Several of the world's religions, when faced with the perplexing issue of Christ's return from the dead, explain it in terms of reincarnation. A proponent of one of the Eastern religions says: "Christ's resurrection was really a reincarnation - another soul in another body." I once heard a Christian minister declare...

For Reading and Meditation:     Colossians 1:1-20

Does salvation come up from mankind through striving, helped by the Divine, or does it come down to us from above, through the act of God and our receptivity of that act? Is it an attainment or an obtainment? The answers separate Christianity from all other religions. Non-Christian religions teach that salvation is...

He is the head of the body, the church. § Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. § We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.A body You have prepared for Me. § Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.They were Yours, You gave them to Me. § He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world....

Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down in his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. § For who in the heavens can be compared to the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to the Lord?My beloved is white and ruddy, chief among ten thousand. § One pearl of great price. § The ruler over the kings of the earth. § His head is like the finest gold; his locks are wavy, and black as a raven. § Head...

Do not be afraid; … I am He who lives. § Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am. We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. § He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. § You are complete in Him, who is the head.Inasmuch . . . as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death,...

The Amen … the Beginning of the creation of God. § The beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I have been established from everlasting, from the beginning, before there was ever an earth … When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep … when He assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters would not transgress His...