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Sound & Season is a daily audio devotional designed to connect the routine moments of life to the rhythms of the Church seasons.
This is Sound in Season. It's Sunday, the fifth week of Lent. Our passage this week comes from Paul's letter to the Colossian church, chapter three verses 12 through 17. And let us listen carefully for this is God's word. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another.
Jeffrey Heine:And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful that the word of Christ dwell richly in you, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Jeffrey Heine:In whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. The apostle Paul leads his readers from the call to set their minds on the things of heaven to readying themselves to live out their days on the earth, to live as God's chosen ones in this world. We are to be marked by compassionate hearts, with kindness, meekness, patience, and forgiveness for one another.
Jeffrey Heine:But patience and kindness, even forgiveness without love is insufficient. Above all, the Christian is to put on love. The expressions of humility and compassion are to be governed by love. And the harmony that is the distinct yet unified interplay of bearing with one another, having legitimate complaints against one another, yet extending forgiveness is bound in harmony through the love of Christ. We do not have his love alone.
Jeffrey Heine:We also have his peace and his word. In a sermon written in the late three hundreds AD, the church father John Chrysostom of Turkey wrote, see the wisdom of this blessed man. He didn't simply say, let the word of Christ be in you, but what? Dwell in you richly. In many places, scriptures call sin mindlessness.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't wait for another teacher. You have the oracles of God, and no one can teach you as they. We do not go to the scriptures for mere insight or simple doses of encouragement. We come to the word so the mind of Christ would dwell in us richly. And in that richness, that wealth of Christ's wisdom, we stir up one another to love and good works through teaching, admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing with thankful hearts to God.
Jeffrey Heine:And in this wisdom, in the richly dwelling word of Christ, everything we do can be done in the name of the Lord Jesus because in him, everything becomes worship. Lord, hear our prayer, and let our cry come to you. Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting father, enlighten the eyes of our hearts and overwhelm us with the immeasurable greatness of your power toward us who believe according to the work of your great might that you have worked in Christ when you raised him from the dead and seated him at your right hand in the heavenly places. Oh, spirit, help us today to behold the man upon the cross, the one for the many, the one without sin, who was made to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:Help us to behold your greatness and your mercy and the manifestation of your perfect love. Oh, lamb of god, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Glory to the father and to the son and to the holy spirit as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. And now our meditation companion from composer Kyle Carpenter and his Lenten instrumental suite, Tenebrae.
Jeffrey Heine:Here is Fading Shadows.