2024-05-16 “If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled”

Colossians 1:23  “If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;… 27  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

Paul writes a comforting message to those that our Lord hath “reconciled  22  In the body of his flesh through death, to present” them “holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:” (Colossians 1:21-22), he calls these “reconciled” the “saints” of God (Colossians 1:26).  These “saints” have already been “reconciled [to God]  22  In the body of his [our Lord’s] flesh through [His sacrificial] death”.  Paul tells them and us that, “If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel”; then, it is these faithful “saints” “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:”.  In this present life there are “wicked men” who “have not faith” (II Thessalonians 3:2), “false prophets” (Matthew 7:15), and “many antichrists” (I John 2:18) who seem to delight in robbing us of peace and happiness in this life.  But, “If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel”, our merciful Lord will give us peace, even in the midst of the onslaught of even the greatest storms and tribulations that often plague us in this present life, and He gives us a sustaining “blessed hope” that one glorious day He will take us to that magnificent place that He calls “the paradise of God” (Luke 23:43; Revelation 2:7).