Daily Bread – November 20, 2023 (The Second Day – Genesis 1:6-8) Colossians 3:12 – Be endued, then, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, with deepest inward mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, long-suffering. God demands that we be conformed to the image of His Son, and this passage of Scripture describes the attributes of that image and of those who are the elect of God, holy and beloved. This identity is in stark contrast to the identity characterized by the ways of those who are under the influence of the spirit of disobedience (Colossians 3:8; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Ephesians 2:2). God expects us to be endued with power from on high, and to be clothed with the splendor of Christ – which is expressed in these divine attributes. These are the characteristics of those who are walking in the light, as He is in the light. Those who are the elect (eklektoi), holy (hagioi) and beloved (hgaphmenoi) of God, are those who have allowed the Holy Spirit to overwhelm their soul with the nature of God, whose light has come and now shines in the midst of a dark and perverse world. We are endued (enduno) with power by the Holy Spirit because we are willing to be led and guided by Him. We are endued because we recognize we can do nothing of ourselves, and therefore, we are willing to be continually filled with the Spirit (John 15:5; Ephesians 5:18). Unfortunately, if we do not move in the faith produced by the Word of God, then we will not participate with the will of God. If we fail to believe He has made us holy, and has provided the means for us to live out true holiness, then we will not know how to yield to the Spirit of God for the things pertaining to life and godliness. We must believe we were begotten of God, so we can be one with Him, and move and walk in all the ways of God’s abundant life! We were chosen of God to bring forth the fruit of His Holy nature, and the One Who has chosen us is also the One Who has given us His Holy Spirit so we can be supplied with all those things He has ordained for our lives (John 15:1-5, 16, 7:38-39, 16:12-14; Luke 11:13). The only proper way to define holiness is by the acts of the Almighty God, Who is holy in all of His works (Psalm 145:17). Holiness describes the purity and sacredness of those who have been washed in the blood of Jesus and filled with the Holy Spirit. It has been said that when a sinner sins, he is a creature breaking the laws of the Holy Creator and Judge. But when a Christian sins, he is a child breaking the loving heart of his Father (The Bible Exposition Commentary). God has chosen us for Himself to be those who are called the “elect of God.” We are called as those who are holy and beloved, to be “as men to whom Christ has become all in all” (Lightfoot), or as Thayer comments, “to become possessed with the mind of Christ as in thought, feeling, and action to resemble Him and, as it were, reproduce the life He lived.” Blessings, Pastor Mark Spitsbergen
Daily Bread 11/20/2021
