Our sense of security is only as stable as the object of our hope. If we find security in our finances, we will ride the roller coaster of Wall Street. If we find confidence and identity in our marriage, our joy and peace will fluctuate with every fight or moment of miscommunication. If we draw our security from a political party, we will be elated when that party is in power and devastated with every election loss. We very quickly find that peace is elusive when it’s attached to anything that is constantly changing.
We may be tempted to think that feelings of instability and insecurity are mostly modern problems related to globalization, industrialization, and technology; however, these are ancient problems that have plagued the human heart and marked the human experience for thousands of years. We have always been trying to answer the question: Where does security come from?
The early church in Colossae was being challenged by this question—in what were they going to base their hope and confidence? The apostle Paul was deeply concerned for the young believers of this city—a church planted by Epaphras out of the beloved church in Ephesus with whom he was deeply familiar. He wrote this short but soaring letter to address the specific ways that the Colossians’ stability was being jeopardized by clever lies and the infiltration of false beliefs. Paul prayed and longed for them to hold firm to the hope of the gospel as he reminded them that they had all they needed in Jesus Christ.
While this is a short epistle (the fancy word for a New Testament letter), it is jam-packed with rich truths about God that directly apply to our lives today. I read it when I first became a believer in high school and have not stopped studying it since. Every time I go through its words, I am more and more astounded by the reality it loudly proclaims: Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).
Paul composed this message during his imprisonment in Rome. During the same time, he also wrote his letter to the church in Ephesus—thus there are many parallel ideas and passages between the two letters, as you will see throughout our devotional study. Paul felt the weight of actual shackles, but he also felt the weight of the well-being of the young churches that he had helped pioneer and plant.
As you will soon find out for yourself, this letter is all about the incredible reality of union with Christ. In our present culture which is identity-obsessed, Paul’s words have much to say to our deepest identity. Amidst a largely insecure world, our security is anchored into the unchanging person of Jesus. Even though the Colossians lived thousands of years before us in a different culture, we share with them this same need for a reminder of our unchanging hope. Though many things have changed since Paul wrote this letter to the early church, the needs and fears of the human heart have not.
When we anchor our souls and lives in Jesus Christ, who is the same today and yesterday and forever, we begin to experience the peace and security God always intended for us (Hebrews 13:8). Yet if you are like me, it is a daily battle to remember my true identity and not be swept away by the lie of finding hope and rest in anything other than Jesus.
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers in Colossae: grace to you and peace from God our father.
Colossians 1:1–2
Our Deepest Identity
I am a wife, a mother, a writer, a church member, a daughter, a San Diegan, and a lover of books, among other things. While these realities are true of me, they are not my deepest identity.
In our culture, we often conflate our identifiers (job, marital status, life stage, accomplishments) with our identity (our sense of who we are). When we do so, we run the risk of missing the grace and peace that flow from knowing our deepest identity, which is found in belonging to Christ.
When Paul introduced himself, there were scores of things he could have said about himself. After all, he was a learned Jewish scholar, trained under one of Judaism’s sharpest minds. He was an unbelievable speaker with honed rhetoric and had been grouped with the brightest and best of Jewish leaders. He was unmatched in his zeal for God (Acts 22:3–5; Philippians 3:4–7). Instead of recalling any of these claims to fame, however, Paul introduced himself simply as “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” (Colossians 1:1).
Paul’s pedigree was not his deepest identity; his relationship to Christ defined him most deeply. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul gives us a window into the source of his confidence: “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). In another letter, Paul tells us that his identity comes neither from others’ views of him nor his own view of himself (1 Corinthians 4:3–4). Paul most deeply defined himself as who God says that he was: a beloved, adopted son and servant (Galatians 4:4–7).
If our identities are founded upon our identifiers, we will live insecure and unstable lives. We will be overly inflated when we are performing well and overly deflated when we are underperforming. The first step toward lasting stability is to stand upon who we are in Christ. As our roots grow deeper into who we are in Jesus, we will be able to say with Paul, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:10).
Excerpted from You Are Secure ©2024 by Aimee Joseph. Used with permission of New Growth Press. May not be reproduced without prior written permission.
you are secure
Through You Are Secure, an eight-week devotional centered on the book of Colossians, Aimee Joseph helps us see that it is our union with Christ that fills our hearts with peace. Amidst a largely insecure world, our security is anchored into the unchanging person of Jesus.
