Lost Pages

The film The Grey tells the story of a group of oil drillers. One day they are on the way to Alaska when the their plane crashes in the middle of nowhere. Eight people survive only to discover that they have just walked into in a territory full of wolves who hunt down human beings for food. The wolves begin to pick them out one by one until towards the end of the movie, the only person left is our main hero played by Liam Neeson.

And he is before all things COLOSSIANS 1:17a The BBC television programme, Dr Who, centres around a fictional extraterrestrial race of humanoids called "time lords", of which the series’ main character, the Doctor, is a member. The Doctor, like all other "time lords" is able to have a non-linear perception of time, which allows him to see everything that was, is, or could be at the same time. He is able to travel to different time period with his technologically advanced phone box which allows him to manipulate time lines.

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him   (Colossians 1:16) I have always had a strange relationship with these few words in the Bible. They generate a weird combination of comfort and concern. The comforting comes from the reminder that Jesus is a Big God! In a world where we appear at the mercy of aircraft pilots, morally bankrupt politicians and Jihadism, it is important to remember that Jesus is actually the one who is truly in charge of all things.

[He is] the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created… ( Colossians 1:15 b-16a) Jesus is the firstborn in the family of creation. That is to say has the first rank of all creation. Paul will later tell us  that Jesus is also the first rank in the new creation: he is "the beginning, the firstborn from the dead".  Jesus is not the first to rise from the dead but  he ranks first among God's new creation, just as he ranks first in the old creation. The idea of Jesus  being even ranked among creation is perplexing. Is Jesus not above creation? The answer of course is yes and no. Jesus in his divine nature  is certainly above creation. Jesus is uncreated because Paul has already told us Jesus is God made visible : "he is the image of the invisible God". Jesus is the Eternal Son of God.

He is the image of the invisible God I have long been fascinated by the challenge of invisibility. One of the things people say when you discuss with the question of God with them is that there’s no evidence for God. Usually what they mean is that God is not physically obvious to them. God is not something that they can feel and touch so they struggle to accept that he exists.

On 3 October 2013, a boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the small Italian island of Lampedusa. Many of immigrants had come to Libya from other parts of Africa. When the Libyan uprising begun they sought to find greener pastures. Around 360 perished, with Italian Coast Guard rescuing 155. A week later another shipwreck occurred killing 34 people.

On the night of 14 April 2014, a group of militants attacked the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Nigeria. They broke into the school, pretending to be guards, and told the girls to get out and come with them. A large number of students were taken away in trucks, possibly into the Konduga area of the Sambisa Forest where Boko Haram were known to have fortified camps. Houses in Chibok were also burnt down in the incident.

Everyone loves a tale of endurance. In most cinema stories the lead character is first introduced to us and then they face some unfortunate obstacle which they then have to overcome. Through that endurance process the audience picks up some life lessons for their own battles of endurance. One of my favourite movies about endurance is the biographical Hurricane (1999). It tells the story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (Denzel Washington) a former middleweight boxing champion who was convicted for a triple homicide in a bar in Paterson, New Jersey. It depicts his life in prison and how he was freed by the love and compassion of a teenager from Brooklyn and his Canadian foster family. In a moving scene the wrongly convicted Hurricane turns up in prison. The prison warden tells him to wear a prison uniform. He refuses by making it clear that "only guilty people wear a prison uniform". And since he is innocent of any crime, he cannot put on the identity of a convict. Thi...

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. [Colossians 1:9-10] Paul wrote Colossians to a church he had never visited before. His purpose was to reassure them that the message of Jesus they had received and come to believe was the real deal. There was no need to look elsewhere or add to Jesus with other religious practices or rules. But how will they know that for certain?

We are all leaders in many areas. And even to our friends informally. Leadership is unavoidable. But how do we know whether we are taking our responsibilities seriously? The Bible is a manual for life and therefore it comes as no surprise that it has a lot to say about leadership directly through letters of Timothy, Titus, Ephesians and 1 Peter. But interestingly enough the overwhelming instructions are indirectly by people who modelled godly leadership leadership. One good example is Epaphras, the church planter of Colossae. Here is what Paul had to say about him in at the beginning of his letter to the Colossians :

Dear Lord, Please fill me with the knowledge of your will by giving me all the boundless resources of your Holy Spirit especially your wisdom and understanding : So that I can live a life worthy of You So that I can please You in every way: So that I can bear the fruits of Your Holy Spirt in every thing I do So that I can grow in knowing you more and more

Once in a while you come across something that makes you doubt.  It may be a  glimpse of a powerful demonstration of supernatural abilities by a person who is not a Christian. And it makes you think, have I got it right? Even science and technology can bring doubts. Every day it seems that we are headed towards a utopia where God may become irrelevant. We will be able to live forever  according  to transhumanism, travel beyond Alpha Centuri and join the Q Continuum wherever they may be found.  You don't have to look for doubts about the Christian message to have doubts. They follow us everywhere. And we are not alone. The believers at Colossae would certainly have had doubts. Rogue teachers appear to have brought in a different message of human salvation.  And of course these young Christians would always have had some questions about their identity being a small church in an obscure part of the world, religiously speaking, that  not pl...

"He has delivered us from the domain of darkness" (Colossians 1:13a) Matthew Henry gets us to the point quickly : [Jesus] has saved us from the dominion of sin, which is darkness (1 John. 1:6), from the dominion of Satan, who is the prince of darkness (Ephesians 6:12), and from the damnation of hell, which is utter darkness (Matthew. 25:30) This deliverance" is not merely cosmetic. It is the ultimate rescue operation. The word "delivered" literally means deliverance from danger. What is the danger we face if are under the domain of darkness? It is certainly the danger of the enslavement under dark Satanic powers. Before we were followers of Jesus our all lives worshipped Satan. Like hostages suffering from Stockholm syndrome we honoured Satan with sin and all kinds of shameful deeds of darkness. Demons and other satanic powers were our masters, even if we were unaware.

We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God  (Colossians 1:9, 10 NIV) Lesson: God is genuinely pleased and excited when you live a life worthy of Him. When your whole life is God first, your desires second. When the first question you ask when you wake up is, 'how can I make God pleased and excited today?' He delights in that. It's quite amazing when you think about it because God is very big! Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2013

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. (Colossians 1:3-5a). Imagine someone gave you a $1 trillion guaranteed trust fund to cash in at a future day. They also made sure that you are given the best medical care and security to ensure that you do live to see that important day. How would you live your life? With confident assurance and less worry about your present circumstances. Indeed you may even be inclined to be more generous because with $1 trillion waiting for you giving away a few dollars is easy!

On 22 July 2011, Anders Behring Brevik bombed Norway’s government buildings in Oslo killing 8 people. He then proceeded to undertake a mass shooting in Utøya Island  where 69 people perished. The court sentence came down to a single question: was Brevik mentally healthy enough to be held responsible for his atrocities? Some of the Court appointed psychiatrists diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and criminally insane.  If that diagnosis had stood Anders Breivik would not have gone to prison. He would have had to be detained in a psychiatric hospital. In the end he was found sane and sentenced to 21 years in prison. The trial sparked debate. What is normal healthy mind? What behaviour does it portray? Opinion was divided, but one thing everyone agreed on: the state of mind is reflected in our behaviours! Actions reflect mind! The Bible says that all true Christians have a new healthy mind. Apostle Paul writing to Christians in Corinth said,   “we have th...

It is usually the case that unexpectedly God brings to sharper focus truths that I have buried and not paid much attention to. I say unexpectedly because the re-focusing more often than not happens through unexpected avenues. And so it was this week as God brought into sharper focus truths about faith as I meditated on the following text from Apostle Paul's letter to the Church at Colossae : We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus [Colossians 1:3-4a] There are several observations we may note from Apostle Paul’s remark.  The first is that Christians have faith in Jesus .  That is to say the Colossians' faith was found not in anything else but  Christ Jesus.  But what is faith? The writer to the Hebrews says, "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” . (Hebrews 11:1). I would paraphrase it like this. Faith is hav...

Three years ago a newspaper posed the question to its readers – is anyone faithful any more? A question it proceeded to answer and conclude that it was impossible to be faithful. Therefore we have to teach ourselves to accept that and live with it. The tragedy of the article was not just in its conclusion, which gives a hopeless picture of life, but also in its limited understanding that faithfulness goes beyond marriage. All areas of our lives require some form of faithfulness. A society in which people are increasingly unfaithful in marriage will undoubtedly lead to faithlessness in other areas e.g. work, citizen obligations. Sin is contagious. The secular vision of faithfulness stands in sharp contrast biblical faithfulness. When the Bible speaks of faithfulness it goes beyond marriage. When Paul wrote the letter to Colossians it was one of the most things that were front and centre on his mind. He introduces himself with a clear statement: Paul, an apostle of Chris...

There are moments in the Christian life when the weight of our failure casts a shadow on who we are in God. These moments are not diminished by how long we have walked with God. On the contrary, it is the paradox of the Christian life that the more I grow to know Jesus the more aware I become of my own sinfulness. The closer I get to God the larger the gap becomes between God’s holiness and my own sinful nature. It is the equivalent of moving from standard definition television to more high definition television. With each step of spiritual growth the reality of my own sinful becomes sharper – and so is my deeper need of God's grace! Confronted with this paradox, I am often tempted to retreat and fall back on my good deeds. I am tempted to work harder, so that my earthly account somehow gives me a resting knowledge that God is proud of me. And in succumbing to such temptations, I sometime replace a God centred identity with a self created identity. I begin curve an identity apart...

I wonder how you introduce yourself to people who you have never met before, but know that your relationship will necessaily go beyond the brief moment. These could be people you meet at the start of a new job or new neighbours. Or it might even be when you attend a local church for the first time. How do you introduce yourself? When I was growing up in Nchelenge (Luapula, Zambia) having penpals was a big thing. Penpals are people who regularly write each other letters. The more penpals we had the more good we felt that we were in touch with the rest of the world, despite living in a village! Hearing from them made us transcend our local circumstances. Starting a penpal friendship always hinged on that first introductory letter. You had to introduce yourself to her. And it was account of what you wrote that the person found you fascinating to correspond with.  The process of penpal writing helped clarify not only who I regarded myself to be, but also if the friendship lasted...