“FOR THOUGH I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ” (Col. 2:5). These two things go together: good order and the firmness of faith in Christ. It works the other way; where there is no firmness of faith in Christ there is no order—there is disorder.
This disorder extends to the body, mind, spirit, and relationships. Some time ago I met an evangelist who had been a very disordered person a few years before. His eyesight was awry; he tried seven different types of glasses. He was allergic to this, that, and the other. The reason? He had taken his eyes off Jesus and put them on a guru, a spiritual master. He found that his idol had feet of clay and the shock was shattering. I pointed out to him that the upset in his eyesight was probably the conversion of a spiritual symptom to a physical symptom—he couldn’t see spiritually, so he couldn’t see physically. He couldn’t digest this spiritual disappointment, so he couldn’t digest his food. He got his eyes back on Christ again, and now he sees perfectly without glasses and digests everything. Incidentally, the ten thousand disciples of this guru pathetically held to the belief that he would be translated and not die, so they held the body for two days after his death, expecting a miracle. The result was disorder, spiritually and socially. Anything outside Christ will let you down if you let your full weight down on it. Life holds together in Christ’s way and goes to pieces in any other way. Firmness of faith in Christ and good order are root and fruit. Loss of faith in Christ and disorder are also root and fruit. Both of them work with an almost mathematical precision. Life works that way; to try to make it work some other way is to face disillusionment. Life works in God’s way or it doesn’t work.
O Lord God, my Father, I thank Thee that life holds together at the center when we are firmly fixed in Thy Son. When we are in Him we are in Thee. We have everything behind us. We are in good order when we are under Thy orders. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: In Him I am in good order; out of Him I am in disorder.
