Living Between the Steps

 
Paul wrote to the Colossian church, “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” Remember, Paul is in a Roman prison cell as he writes this letter and he is filled with rejoicing. Most people only rejoice when their circumstances improve, but Paul is rejoicing because Christ was being honored and believers were growing. I think a good question we could ourselves is this: What fills your conversation when life squeezes you? Hardships often reveal what matters most to us.  
  
Paul’s conversation was filled with faith, hope, and love. Some have called this the apostolic shorthand for real Christianity. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” You could ask a stranger, “Do you have Faith, Hope, and Love?” Or you could use shorthand and ask if they have FHL. They might think you are talking about a cable channel. Some of you might respond, “No, but I have NHL, and Go Canes!”  
 
Faith, hope, and love are essential to life, but you cannot find or purchase them online. You can’t make them in your shop. They are gifts from God. And Paul doesn’t leave any of these huge gifts from God dangling out there on their own. He clearly connects them to Christ. “We have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus,” he writes. I have heard people say,  “Well, as long as you have faith, you’re going to be ok.” But faith has no intrinsic value in itself. It is only as valid as the object in which it is placed. Our faith is in Christ alone. 
 
What about love? Paul praises the Colossians for the love they had for all the saints. Love is not a feeling or a merit badge or a skill that some have, and others do not. It is a gift from God and a clear testimony of faith at work in you. He said to the Galatians that working for salvation didn’t count for anything, “but only faith working through love.” If you meet a person who says he is a Christian and seems to believe all the right things but there is a lovelessness about him, a lack of warmth and charity toward people, his faith may be questionable at best. Because faith works itself out in love, first for God and second for our neighbor. It is fueled by a gratitude we have toward God that He has given us each day, each moment, to live for His glory and for the blessing of others. Every moment counts.  
 
I remember the story I heard years ago about a man named Ralph who was picked up at the airport to speak at an event that night. He was an EOD specialist in the Army, Explosive Ordnance Disposal. His job was to detect and to dispose of landmines or IEDs to protect the soldiers coming behind him. As they were walking through the airport Ralph stopped twice on the way to baggage claim. Once was to help a lady whose bags had fallen off the cart she was pushing. Then he stopped to help a little boy who was crying because he seemed to be lost. The man with Ralph finally said, “How do you do that?” “Do what?” Ralph asked. The man said, “Stop and help the lady and that boy. I mean, I didn’t even see them, I was just trying to get to baggage claim.” Ralph said, “I lost some good buddies to IEDs. I learned to live between the steps. Every moment matters.” How can we do that, live between the steps?  
 
We can do that, Paul said, “because of hope laid up for you in heaven.” Some believe Paul mentions hope last here because he wanted to remind the Colossians that their faith and their love sprung from their eternal hope. They had lived in bondage as pagans, without hope in the world, until they heard the gospel from Epaphras and Philemon, the wonderful news of forgiveness, the joy of salvation, and hope of heaven, who is Jesus. Paul wrote to Titus, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”  
 
We live and love between the steps because we have hope in Christ, a hope that cannot and will not disappoint.