A Glorious Mystery

A "mystery" is usually in a novel, where you have to read to the end to find out whodunnit.  (And no, I'm not smart enough to figure it out earlier.)  But in the Greek used in the New Testament, it normally means "something that, though once a secret, has now been fully revealed in the gospel" (Expositor's Commentary).  In Colossians 1, Paul writes of this sacred mystery, not as something still hidden, but an open secret:  "And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory." (Col. 1:27).  In this life, it's hard to measure a spiritual presence, so it can still look like a mystery sometimes; but the 'assurance of sharing his glory' is something I can get excited about!  Adding to that blessing, Paul writes "Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault" (verse 22). 

I'm awe-struck by these statements of spiritual fact.  I don't think of myself as 'without a single fault' because I'm too familiar with most of my faults.  But here, Paul says we are holy because of Jesus Christ, not our own right deeds.  We 'stand in God's presence,' he says, through 'the death of Christ.'  And besides that, we have the perfect Christ living in us. 

What that means:  Our future is secure.  On top of that, right now, we don't have to put up with a 'second-best' life anymore.  We don't have to settle for drudgery, ongoing depression or hopelessness.  The mind and will of Christ-in-us can lift us above all the misery and despair we might feel in looking just at physical life.  We have an absolute promise from God of "sharing in his glory" (forever!), and a spiritual sense of that glory already, because of Christ-in-us.  We can't measure it with physical science, but it's there and we can feel it.  And if we stay aware of Christ-in-us, we can let his presence change our thinking and our results. 

It's a different focus than we had when we didn't know Jesus.  People who are unaware of what he did for them don't have this hope, or this living presence in them.  But they could -- if we were to let them see it in us, and tell them about it!  If that joy is in you, why not share it with someone who needs it?  And if Christ is in you, and you're not feeling the joy, then ask him for more of it -- he will answer!