Dave's Diary

Daily Reading: Colossians 1:15-29

To celebrate Christmas is to celebrate the wonder and mystery of the glorious, almighty, infinite and eternal Son of God choosing to take on our humanity and be born of a virgin. Through His incarnation, Jesus became the visible manifestation (the “image”) of the invisible God. He is the firstborn over all creation, through Whom and for Whom all things were created, and He took on flesh in Jesus. As Charles Wesley phrased it in “Hark the Herald Angel Sing”, in Jesus we see the glory of God “veiled in flesh”.

Colossians 1 reveals another marvellous mystery, namely, that God wants to veil His glory in your flesh too. “Yeah right,” you may exclaim, “fat chance of that! Has God looked at me lately?” Well, of course, the answer is that God has made a way for the same Eternal Son of God to dwell in us. This is what the apostle describes as “the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (v.27). Christ is in you when your faith is in Him … and God’s glory has taken up residence in your life. Now you have to let it shine out!

How? By cooperating with the living God, working in you by the Spirit of Christ, as He forms and fashions you into full maturity in Christ (v.28), that is, into a more complete reflection of Christ’s wonderful nature and character. This is the glory you are moving steadily towards in Christ – the glory of Christ being revealed in and through you. And because Christ is in you, you can rejoice in the sure and certain expectation that this will come to pass – not by your own strength, but by the power of “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.

Come Lord Jesus! From deep within me manifest Your glory for all the world to see. Fashion and form me so that I may bear Your beautiful image in the world and show Your glory to all I encounter today. Amen.