"For the Christ follower, thankful worship is a Lifestyle" (Colossians 3:16-17) Part Two

Thankful worship occupies the mind with the word of Christ! Paul says, "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you" (verse 16). "The word of Christ" is in reference to the teaching that originates with Christ as well as the teaching about Him! All of Scripture points toward Christ. In Luke 24:44 we read, "Now He said to them, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." The phrase, "the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms" are the entire Old Testament. In John 5:39, Christ said, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me." In John 5:46, Christ said, "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me." All of these passages demonstrate that Christ is the main theme of Scripture! The Scriptures are "the word of Christ" because they testify to us about Christ and they point us to Christ as Lord and Savior! What's our responsibility to the word of Christ? According to Paul, we're to let that word "richly dwell" within us. What does this mean? The word, "richly" speaks of the completeness of the Scriptures for all of life! We must understand and embrace that whenever we approach God's Word, we're approaching a treasure that can never be exhausted! This is the richness of God's Word! We're to stand in awe and amazement of the fact that the more we search the Scriptures, the more we find out how little of it we know and how much more of it there is to know! What an awesome God we serve! In order to let the word of Christ "richly dwell" in us, we must have God's Word in us in abundance! We're to feed on God's nourishing Word as much as possible! We're to internalize it and make it a part of us. In speaking of God's Word, the psalmist says, "How sweet are Your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" (Psalm 119:103). How could the psalmist say these words? He could say them because he fed on God's Word! How about us? In modern vernacular, we're to "Pig out on God's Word!" God's Word is something that we can't ever get too much of! While eating too much natural food will make us overweight and harm our physical health, we can't over eat God's Word! If our physical weight were decided by how much of the Word of Christ we consumed, would we be a skinny church or a fat church? The Word of Christ is to be at home in us! It's to dwell in us! Because of this we're to be very familiar with it! Be encouraged!