30-Day Personal Devotion Challenge Day 13

Good Morning Church Family – Day 13

Read Colossians 2:13-15

Devo Thought: I remember my second year as a teacher. It was by far my worst year. I was struggling to balance my life as a seminary student, a new dad, a husband, and as a teacher. I never felt like a had enough time to get it all done, and I felt like I was failing. I had tried some new teaching methods, which, on the surface, sounded really good but, in practice, were really ineffective and ultimately frustrating to the students I was teaching. In particular, I had a set of twins in one of my classes who were struggling with one of the things I was trying. Their dad finally had had enough. I remembering getting an email from him requesting a phone call. It was a Sunday afternoon, and not being one to let things linger, I made the call. That call basically became a chance for that parent to list out all the ways they thought I was failing. At the end of the call, he said that he would be reaching out to the head of the upper school. I remember the dread I felt preparing for and going into that meeting. I felt like I was in a prison of fear and that his list was nailed right outside the door for me to continually look at. This image is what we see in Colossians 2:13-15. There is a record of debt that stands against each of us with its legal demand, and we can’t do anything about it. We needed someone to come and pay the debt and free us from the legal demands, and that’s what Jesus did. He took that record of debt and nailed it to the cross, forgiving us of all our trespasses. Back to my story, we got to the day of the meeting. I was terrified that I was going to lose my job. The dad, who had created the list of my failing, walked in that day and, before anything was said, forgave me and asked me for forgiveness. In doing that, he disarmed the head of the upper school. In forgiving us, Jesus has disarmed the authorities who can punish us for failing to meet the legal demands. Now, we are free.

Prayer – Let us thank God for the freedom we get from Jesus.