Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
Colossians 3:16-17

Dear God, what is the richness of Christ that is supposed to fill my life and I am supposed to share? It takes me back to a great sermon I heard from Andy Stanley last December. He started with a thesis that he understands why people can’t bring themselves to believe in the Jesus of the Bible and that all of the things the Bible says happened really happened. He got that. What he couldn’t understand was why anyone wouldn’t want it to be true. The Jesus of the Bible and his message was so compelling, why wouldn’t you want him to have been real?

So what is it about Jesus that I should want to be real? What is the richness of him that should fill me? Well, how about forgiveness of all of my mistakes and a clean slate between me and you? How about the fruits of the Spirit that enter and grow in my life when I am in relationship with you? How about the standard he and you (and the Spirit) ask me to live up to, asking me to live a life that loves you and loves others, and going and sinning no more?

I think when it comes down to it, the richness comes from something I continually go back to–the fruits of the Spirit. When love, joy, peace, gentleness, faithfulness, kindness, goodness, and self control (Galatians 5:22-23) are growing in your life and consuming the space that was once occupied by sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these (Galatians 5:19-21) then My life becomes richer richer.

Father, help me to be your ambassador. That starts with me being worthy of representing you. Help me to be worthy of people knowing I’m a Christian and evaluating a life spent submitted to you by looking at me. Let them see all of the fruits of the Spirit in me, and that will start by me actually giving you good soil in my soul where you can grow.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen