The Sufficiency of Jesus (Colossians 2:8-10)

All fulfillment depends on Jesus.  Whatever false teaching would mess that up should be avoided.   And men with their father, the devil, will persist in influencing people to turn away from the Lord.  Every single human being gets that choice:  the true and only Jesus or what men have to say about Jesus and everything else.  Everyone’s eternal destiny hangs on how he responds to those two options.

The first possibility is in v. 8, which is man’s thinking on things.  You can go with that and it might even make sense to you.  It is after all how most people get popular and powerful in time.  Of course, Paul warns to beware of that direction.  It will “spoil” you.  The Greek verb translated “spoil” essentially has the understanding of “being made spoil.”  You’ll be nothing but Satan’s booty if you go that direction.  You’ll be his trophy hanging on his wall.  You’ll think you have freedom to think and express yourself and really be the real you, but you’ll actually be his prisoner, his captive.

By the way, Satan will call the philosophy “evidence.”  He’ll say it’s empirical, it’s science, and the only reasonable way.  He’ll say that his way is for the thinking person, somebody who isn’t easily duped by shallow, mindless Christianity.  It is very elite.  This is the way man’s wisdom is—it comes with a lot of bells and whistles.  It will make you look good.

To get the Jesus’ way, which is the only way of salvation, real wisdom, eternal life, and true satisfaction, you have to recognize your own spiritual and intellectual bankruptcy.  You have to do something like what Paul did in Philippians 3 when he said all his best smarts and achievements he had to put the “dung” label on.

I wish that teenagers would consider this for a moment.  The fads of this world are sucking you into a worthless life.   They may be “cool” or “phat” or “sweet,” but they make you captive.  You think you’re getting something, but all you’re getting is getting gotten.  What you think you will get from the world and its toys will leave you with the inside of a donut, even worse.

On the Jesus side of the ledger (vv. 9, 10) is “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”  The Gnostics said, “not so, Jesus was just some emanation several times removed from God; God couldn’t or wouldn’t dwell in a body—all flesh is evil and all spirit is good.”  And that teaching, my friend, is convoluted and a dead end.  In Jesus is everything that God is, which happens to be everything.  And when I say everything, I mean things that you haven’t even thought that you needed.  Which is why it is also to say that “ye are complete in Him.”

Want a complete life?  It’s Jesus.  That’s why it’s so important that you get settled about Him.  Stop frittering your life away with the useless trinkets, which happen to be anything that is not Jesus.

And Christian, be confident.  You’re complete in Jesus.  Complete.  Believe it.  Don’t apologize for that choice.  It’s the best.  Now go tell everyone.