Rooted in Christ Part 5: Avoiding Spiritual Potholes

Rooted in Christ Part 5: Avoiding Spiritual Potholes

Pursue Jesus above all things.

Colossians 2:16-23

“Men are incurably religious.”
C.S. Lewis

“You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.”
Colossians 2:13-15

1. Don’t let secondary things take the place of what is primary.

“So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality.”
Colossians 2:16-17

“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life.”
John 5:39-40

“Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels, saying they have had visions about these things.”
Colossians 2:18

“These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.”
Colossians 2:23

“You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.”
Colossians 2:13

2. We should neither impose nor condemn others.

“You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them.”
Colossians 2:20-22

“They will say it is wrong to be married and wrong to eat certain foods. But God created those foods to be eaten with thanks by faithful people who know the truth. Since everything God created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks. For we know it is made acceptable by the word of God and prayer.”
1 Timothy 4:3-5

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”
Jeremiah 17:9

3. Stay connected to Christ.

“Their sinful minds have made them proud, and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it.”
Colossians 2:18-19

Do you care too much about the rules?

“ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:37-40

Where do I sometimes impose secondary things onto others?

Where am I letting others impose secondary things onto me?

Am I making enough of Jesus?