OPENING DEVOTIONAL

Pastor Dan led us in a singing of "Wonderful, Merciful Savior" (hymn #162), after which he led us through a devotional of Colossians 1:1-12.

Some propositions from this passage included:

Christians should pray for spiritual maturity and growth.
- Paul and Timothy knew that God is the one who causes Christians to grow, and so they relied on God in prayer for the Colossians' spiritual growth (v 9-12).
A Christian's hope is laid up in heaven, not in the world.
- It is important for us to always be looking forward to eternity in heaven.
- There are things in our lives on earth that are exciting, such as getting married, having a baby, or getting a new job. To be sure, these are all blessings from God; however, in reality, these things are all temporal and will fade away in time. In contrast, heaven and the blessings laid up there are eternal, and so Christians ought to place their hope in heaven.

Questions about this passage included:

What is the "big picture" of this passage?
- Verse 9 mentions the "goal", which is that Christians should be filled with the knowledge of God's will.
The world filled refers to the idea of "a saturation of knowledge". The Christian life begins with the filling of the mind with knowledge of what God wants.
- In verses 9-12, Paul outlines the resultant fruit that is borne from the life of a Christian whose mind is filled with the knowledge of God's will.
Verse 12 refers to God as the one "who has qualified us". What does this mean? Is this describing the selection of those who have been chosen to receive the inheritance, or does it the describe the qualification of those who will receive inheritance?
- It describes the qualification; the word "qualified" should be understood as "made adequate".
- God is the only one who can do (and who has done) something to make us fit for inheritance. He can be the only one who qualifies us. In ourselves, we have no credentials that can serve as credit for receiving the inheritance from God.

MEMORIZATION

Daniel Khuc, Nate Chang, John Tang, Peter Chen, and Pastor Dan recited all of Matthew chapter 6.

Some reflections from Matthew 6:

The full reward of recognition from men is contained in the earthly realm, but cannot be found in or brought to heaven. Social media can serve as a metric for us to measure and gauge approval from our fellow man (likes, etc.), but these earthly rewards, trophies, and honors are temporal and can be destroyed and forgotten.
Jesus calls God "our heavenly Father" numerous times. Hearing and reading about this helps to remind us that God cares for us and loves us as our Father, and helps to spur us on to love and thankfulness toward Him.