Free From Accusations

I have been out of my groove. Out of reading the Bible, out of blogging, and out of my school focus. Life has been weird and hard all at one time.

I finally picked up the Bible (I read it on my phone sometimes) the other day. I read through Ephesians, very easy book (my suggestion for new christians). I read a chapter a day, and then I got to Colossians 1:21-22.

In my Bible, this verse states, " Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your mind because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." Verse 23 continues this, saying that these things are only true, "If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel."

These couple of verses struck me and I wanted to brake them down. So the first verse, 21, states that we once were "alienated from God." I feel like, to understand the full context, we need to know what the words mean. The first definition in the dictionary (online, like Google) says, " experiencing or inducing feelings of isolation or estrangement." This hints that we are isolated from God or we have the feeling that we are isolated. As believers, we know that we are never separated from God and his love; Hell is the only place that this will happen and (thankfully) christian will never have to experience that! The second description for alienated intrigues me a bit, "(of property) transferred to the ownership of another person or group." This is very interesting, "of property." I believe that this shows that, "once, we were slaves to something that we weren't meant to be slaves to." There are verses in the Bible that talk about being a slave to Christ, but this is something different.

Let's move on. The second part of the first verse says that we were enemies in our mind because of our evil behavior, otherwise known as "flesh." First, let's address that the whole thing about "enemies" was in our mind. It was something that our "flesh" made up. God never saw us as enemies, and our soul knew what it wanted. Our souls are created to crave Jesus. Now that that is covered, let us look at the definition of "flesh." The dictionary definition of "Flesh" is, "put weight on." I chose the second definition because the first definition was just the literal piece of your body, skin. This is so interesting! We have concluded so far that this is talking about your evil behavior, which can be paraphrased into flesh, and that flesh means weight. So we once thought that we were enemies of God while we were "putting on weight." If you look at this literally, when your body gains unhealthy weight, it starts to have many problems (high blood pressure, diabetes, orthopedic problems, and many times people have depression). So, once we were slaves to something else, a different group of people, and then while we were making stuff up in our minds because of our "spiritual depression," we decided that God was our enemy.

Here comes the BUT! Thankfully, with God there is always a but. Verse 22 says, "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." This is the part where the title comes in (don't you guys love when writers and producers make the title something meaningful? Me too!) to play. Before we unpack this verse, let's figure out what the words "reconciliation, sight, free, and accusation" mean. So according to the Google, "reconciliation" means, "the restoration of friendly relations," or " the action of making one view or belief compatible with another." Sight, in the English (Google) dictionary, means, "manage to see or observe (someone or something); catch an initial glimpse of." Free or freedom means, "not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes, not or no longer confined or imprisoned, without cost or payment, and release[d] from captivity, confinement, or slavery." And last but not least, "Accusation" means, "a charge or claim that someone has done something illegal or wrong."

Now that we all understand what those words (some with multiple meanings) mean, we can carry on with our adventures. So let us start with this first part of the verse, to paraphrase with our new definitions, it says, " BUT now, Christ has created friendly relations with us and our beliefs are comparable with one another." This destroys our flesh's argument or being enemies with God. Let's continue! The next part says (all this in the paragraph where there are quotations are my own interpretation, not the actual Bible. The real Bible passage is above.) that, "you are able to receive these blessings because of Christ's physical body through his death on the cross, all to prove you to be holy in God's sight." Sight, we looked up that word! God's sight or, "God's observation and initial glimpse of us." So Jesus loved us so much that he would die so that we can go to God or be in his presence at anytime; that when he sees us, he sees Christ's sacrifice and that replaces the Old Testament cleansing before entering the presence of God." Now his view of us is holy, we are without blemish and FREE FROM ACCUSATION! Now we are without blemish, without flaw, and we are no longer under the control or power of someone who is claiming that we have done something wrong or illegal. This defies the beginning of verse 21 when we talk about being alienated or being a slave to something that isn't meant to be. Now that Christ has died for us, we no longer have spiritual charges for our sin held against us. We are no longer. confined or imprisoned, we no longer have to make sacrifices and pay dues for salvation, and we are now free from slavery and confinement .

I do not know about you guys, but that is so beautiful. It takes such a loving God to offer his son so that we don't have to be a slave to our minds or the false accusations (shame and fear) of the devil or other people. I am so thankful for such a loving father!

Verse 23, I just love how God promises us this freedom and then tells us what we need to do to receive our promise, tells us how to act to receive our promise. This is the actual Bible, "If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel." So if we continue to stand firm in our faith, not wavering when the wind blows and not cowering when something 'scary' comes along, and do not lose out SIGHT of hope that is in the gospel, the hope that Jesus is coming back and the hope that one day we will be rewarded for standing firm; THEN, all of the promises, the freedom and restoration, the true friend that God is, will be yours.

To summarize these couple of verses, I am going to make my own "translation." The Olivia Harrelson revelation (a surprising and previously unknown fact ), interpretation (an explanation or way of explaining) , and translation (the process of translating words or text from one language [or meaning] into another) of this verse is, "Once we were slaves to something else, a different group of people, and then while we were making stuff up in our minds because of our "spiritual depression," which made us gain weight (not physical), we decided that God was our enemy. BUT now, Christ has created friendly relations with us and our beliefs are comparable with one another. You are able to receive these blessings because of Christ's physical body through his death on the cross, all to prove you to be holy in God's sight. Now his view of us is holy, we are without blemish, without flaw, and we are no longer under the control or power of someone who is claiming that we have done something wrong or illegal. Now that Christ has died for us, we no longer have spiritual charges for our sin held against us. We are no longer confined or imprisoned, we no longer have to make sacrifices and pay dues for salvation, and we are now free from slavery and confinement . So if we continue to stand firm in our faith, not wavering when the wind blows and not cowering when something 'scary' comes along, and do not lose out SIGHT of hope that is in the gospel, the hope that Jesus is coming back and the hope that one day we will be rewarded for standing firm; THEN, all of the promises, the freedom and restoration, the true friend that God is, will be yours."