Colossians & My Desire For Growth

I decided to dedicate myself over Lent to read, study, and memorize as much as possible of Colossians. The goal is not exactly to recite everything word for word, but to learn more about a good and holy God. It only has four chapters, so I though to myself... Could I memorize about a chapter over about 10 days? It seems like it shouldn't be that bad when comparing how many songs I have memorized even by one singer alone. You would think if you can memorize hundreds of songs that you could memorize 95 verses over approximately 40 days. I just want to clarify that I am not blogging to be self-righteous, but for growth in Christ, so I would be happy to hear from others in hopes to be conformed to Christ.

I desire to have a solid understand of who Jesus is and what He desires to do in our world today, so I thought that a book like Colossians would be essential for me in this process. I can talk until I am blue in the face about Jesus, but I have always struggled with memorizing bible verses, and knowing where they are exactly in the Bible. In my struggle with sin, it is always evident that me in what I have a hard time believing about the gospel is the sufficiency of Christ and his supremacy. 

It's my understanding that Colossae was about 100 miles inland from Ephesus on what was at one time, a major trade route to India and China, and with it being such a major trading headquarters, I assume, that it was a hub for many types of religion and spirituality. In my life before Christ, I was a Tibetan Buddhist-- I surrendered myself to false hopes that I could attain nirvana, and be liberated from the cycle of samsara; the image of Christ would occur in my thoughts when doing visualization meditations.I grew up in a Christian home, but doubted the Godhood of Christ-- my doubt wasn't able to stop Christ from saving my soul from a false hope. Even today, I still have times where I would catch myself thinking thoughts of my old self. My prayer is that Christ will exterminate my old self. I hope that this blog will be an exoteric explanation of Colossians going slowly and verse by verse.

My next blog will be about Colossians 1:1-6.   

               Colossians 1:1-6 ESV BIBLE

 "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
    To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae:
    Grace to you and peace from God our Father.
    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. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,"