ATTRIBUTES—-

SUPREME

WHO IS GOD? SUPREME

The description in Colossians 1 should leave us in awe of Jesus Christ. When we read passages like this, we see that there is no middle ground: We must either believe that Jesus is the supreme God or believe that He was a crazy, dis­illusioned teacher who thought He was God. You can’t land in between. The claims Jesus made about Himself and the claims His followers made about Him leave no room to think He was just a regular man, a good teacher, or a political revolutionary.

Paul describes Jesus’ identity in Colossians 1:15-20, and reading it, we are left with a picture of Jesus as the one who is supreme over all things and worthy of being worshiped and loved. This passage describes Him as the one who existed before anything else, the one who holds all creation together, the head of His family of faith, the Lord over death, and the ultimate source of peace for humankind. He is supreme. No one else is even comparable.

WHO AM I? ONCE AN ENEMY, NOW RECONCILED

In light of what we read about Jesus Christ in Colossians 1, it’s obvious that we can’t
compare to His glory. In fact, Colossians 1:21 clearly describes who we were because of Christ—and also who we are now after finding salvation in Him for our sins.

Before Christ, we were born enemies. We were not born cool with God. We were far from Him, not close. But Paul says something incredible: Because the supreme Christ died physically in our place and took our punishment, we have been reconciled to God. Now we can enter the presence of God and be seen by Him as “without a single fault” (Colossians 1:22).

We did not reconcile ourselves. Christ reconciled us and bridged the gap, making us—His enemies—into the faultless friends and family of God.

WHAT DO I DO? STAND FIRMLY IN THE TRUTH

Once we have believed in Jesus Christ as the supreme Savior and Lord of our lives, what do we do? The answer is simple: Stand firmly in that truth (Colossians 1:23). God wants us to have deep faith, conviction, and assurance that Christ has died for our salvation and we can trust Him to see it through. God does not want us to backtrack. He knows the price His Son paid, and He doesn’t want us to turn away from His great, saving gift and the peace it brings to us. So stand firm in the fact that Christ bridged the gap for us to know God and—forevermore!—took away the sin that separated us from Him.