Truth Today: Colossians 1:5

Here we have the reason for the people’s faith and their love for all the saints. It was because of the hope that is laid up for them in heaven. Their love was sourced from another place—heaven.

Their love was not sourced from anything seen, but from heaven, a place they have not seen but with which they identify, a place they have embedded inside of them, imprinted on their hearts by the Holy Spirit given to them, who is the down payment of our unseen inheritance (Ephesians 1:14) that draws us upwards, imprinting in us that we are but foreigners and exiles in this world (1Peter 2:11).

Later in the book of Colossians, Paul wrote that we should keep thinking about things above, not things on the earth (Colossians 3:2).

There is a hope reserved for us in heaven. If we already see it, then it is no longer hope. This hope drives us and gives us an other-worldly motivation.

John said it this way: "And everyone who has this hope focused on him (Jesus) purifies himself, just as Jesus is pure" (1 John 3:3).

There is a hope reserved for them in heaven. They are not trying to get themselves a place in heaven. Jesus made a fresh and living way to heaven through his flesh broken on the cross (Hebrews 10:19-20).

There is no hope for you if you won’t pass through that broken body to see God. Jesus said if we do not eat his flesh and drink his blood, we have no life in ourselves (John 6:53-58).

You have to embrace the fact that Jesus died for your sins so that you can have a place with God, and that your portion is in the outer darkness otherwise (Matthew 22:13). He said he is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). He is the one and only.

A voice came from heaven, telling Peter and others, "This is my one dear Son… Listen to him!" (Matthew 17:5). Not Moses, not Elijah—Listen to Him.

He is Emmanuel (Isaiah 7:14), God with us. Through Him, the Father has translated us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His own dear Son (Colossians 1:13).

Jesus already said that he is going to make ready a place for us, so that where he is, we will be also (John 14:3).

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The second part of the lead verse introduces another thought. Here Paul is clear that the Colossian Christians learned of the hope of heaven through the word of truth, the gospel.

The good news (gospel) is not good news if it is about the promise of things in this world. It can’t be good news if unbelievers can get it. Paul said that the gospel has the promise of this world and also the world to come (1 Timothy 4:8).

But the emphasis in the verse is the hope of heaven. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Nothing in the gospel promises a life of comfort and bliss for the believers. Jesus actually promised persecution (Mark 10:30).

The obsession with the good life is not from God. It’s a distraction from thinking about things above, focusing us on the things on earth (Colossians 3:2).

When the gospel is turned into bread and butter, we have another gospel, not the one that cost the blood of Jesus.

Search the scriptures, and you will not find the promise of the good life for the followers of Jesus Christ as something that must necessarily mark Christians.

People who ask you, "If you are a Christian, why are bad things happening to you?" would have told Jesus, "If you are God’s Son, come down from the cross" (Matthew 27:40).

Christianity does not equate to the good life; Christ gave us eternal life, not food on your table. He gives food on the table just like He rains on both the just and the unjust, but that is not why He died. He died to bring you the hope of eternal life. Do you understand?

In the lead verse, Paul equates the message of truth, which has in it the hope of heaven, with the gospel. The materialism false gospel was not in Paul’s thoughts when he wrote those words. It is a later invention by those who would make a mess of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who would make a bread of the people, who would abuse them for their own gain.

What are you hearing? Are you hearing the hope of heaven in what is being presented to you as the truth? Is it a man flexing in front of you about how great he is, or is it about the greatness of Christ, who has made a new and living way to draw near to God through his flesh?

Jesus already warned, "Take care about what you hear" (Mark 4:24). You are responsible. You don’t have to continue in false churches that preach the good life.

They are not preaching the truth, and it would not help you. Believe the gospel, not the false gospel of the good life, peddled by those who want to make you bread and eat you up, consuming your spiritual senses with their Bible-twisting antics.

Beware.