Complimentary Story
May 2026“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14 ESV).
In last month’s article, I challenged us to read through the book of Colossians every day for thirty days. I hope that reading through the book of Colossians was a blessing to you. If you did not take the challenge, there is always this month to spend time each day reading from the book of Colossians.
I have been discussing the deceptions of the world in my previous articles, as well as the need to be grounded in the only source of absolute truth that we have, that being the Bible. One deception I would like to challenge is this idea that you can walk in both the world and the Word.
Unfortunately we have a culture in American Christianity that teaches we can simply say a prayer and then go and live however we want to live as long as we can remember a time and place we made the decision to follow Christ. It gets even easier than that, because all we have to do is just write that date in our Bible, and then we can go blow the dust off of the cover of our Bible every few years and see that date is still there when we happen to have a chance for God and His Word. There is a term for this deception, it is called “easy believism.”
In the American Church, we have distilled the meaning of repentance down to become merely a synonym for “sorry.” I have addressed this before, but repentance comes from the Greek word “Metanoia.” Metanoia means a one hundred and eighty degree change of direction. We cannot simply be sorry for our sins; we must repent of them, we must turn from sin and toward Jesus.
The verses I chose to write about this month tell us that if we truly have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, having placed our faith and trust in Him, we have been delivered. “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14 ESV).
I want to warn people. We need to be warned that the American Church culture is trying to have Jesus and the world at the same time. We cannot do that, we cannot serve two masters and we know this because Jesus Himself said so.
Have we been delivered out of the domain of darkness? If so, why are we still living in darkness?
As Christians we can live among the darkness of this world but we cannot live in darkness. We have been called to be both the Salt and the Light of this world. How will others see the light if we do not show it to them?
Of the seven “I AM” statements Jesus makes in the Gospel of John, only one of them does He invite us to be part of. Jesus says in John 8:12, “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’”
Jesus invites us into the ministry of being the light of the world in Matthew 5:14-16, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16 KJV).
We cannot be a nation of lit candles hidden under a basket called “church.” We must stand against the darkness. We must not live in darkness any longer if we truly have been delivered into the Kingdom of His beloved Son.
Since we, “Have redemption, the forgiveness of sins,” (Colossians 1:14b), we must reject sin and no longer choose to live in a life saturated by sin. It is bad enough we must live in a world saturated in sin and darkness, but we must be something standing in opposition to it, not being swallowed up by it. The darkness and depravity of this world is swallowing the American Church, one compromising bite at a time.
Thankfully, those who truly are in Christ can never be devoured. Thankfully, God always preserves a faithful remnant. Do you have redemption and the forgiveness of sins? There is still space to repent. You can have deliverance from the domain of darkness but only in Christ.
Email:
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