Stay alert, stay alive

“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:”

Colossians 2:6 [KJV]

On Monday, I returned home from a 2,400km road trip with family. Our trip included the joy of attending a Christian wedding, travel through three states, several 4 am starts, eating too many snacks, and passing hundreds of road signs. Some of these signs promoted safe driving messages. The Victorian signs had polite suggestions such as “Rest if sleepy.” But we South Aussies are much blunter. Our signs, sometimes accompanied by horrific images, carry slogans such as “If you’re distracted, no one’s driving”, “Fatigue is fatal”, or “Stay alert, stay alive”.

The last slogan, “stay alert, stay alive” stuck in my head – with a broader application than driving a car. It’s a slogan the Apostles would approve of, I decided. After all, it’s a four-word summary of verses such as, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8), or “Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:6). In Scripture, the Christian life is often illustrated by travel-related metaphors. It’s described as a marathon (Hebrews 12:1-2), a walk (Galatians 5:25, Colossians 2:6), or a journey (Proverbs 3:5-6).

What happens if we don’t stay alert on the road or in our Christian lives? We might run smack into a hazard, drift off the road because we’re out of alignment, or miss seeing a signpost and take a wrong turn. Much could – and has – been said on this topic of staying on track in our Christian lives. But today we’ll focus on some applications for women from Colossians 2:6, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:”

Firstly, we’re told in this verse to remember our start point on the journey. We are those who have received Christ Jesus as our Saviour, saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8). We were once on the broad way leading to destruction, but, through salvation, we are now on the narrow way leading to life (Matthew 7:13-14). If you’re on the wrong road, no matter how long you travel down it, no matter how much effort you expend, you’ll reach the wrong destination. However, if we are saved, and on the right road to the right destination, why does remembering where we started matter? On road trips, for example, we’re typically more interested in kilometres to our destination, than kilometres from our starting point. But knowing where/how we started in our Christian life gives us perspective on how to live now. One area is our attitude towards sin. The Apostle Paul lists different sins in 1 Corinthians 6, then says, “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). When we see the life of bondage and sin we left behind to live in liberty in Christ (Galatians 2:4), we’ll answer like Paul, “Shall we continue in sin … God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Romans 6:1b-2). We’ll also have the right perspective on good works. We’ll see good works as the outcome, not means, of holy living. Salvation is a “gift of God: Not of works lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8b-9). Our ongoing sanctification is also by faith, with Paul rebuking the Galatians’ wrong attitude by saying, “Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). We will continue to depend on God, knowing that we begin, continue and end our journeys by faith, not sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Secondly, these verses tell us to stay focused and alert on our journey. On my family’s road trip, we travelled through areas of New South Wales that had recently had heavy rain. Signs saying “Danger, soft edges” warned us that soft mud lay just alongside the hard bitumen road surface. We passed a bogged caravan, and several times saw churned up tracks where inattentive drivers had run off the highway. When Paul told the Colossians, ‘so walk ye in’ Christ Jesus the Lord, he effectively said, “you started on track, now stay on track.” Just as danger lay either side of the safe bitumen road, danger lies either side of safe path of God’s will. Interestingly, both sermons I listed to in church last Sunday were on this topic. One was on making right decisions that will keep us aligned with God’s will, and the other warned about the dangers of being led astray by false teachers. Many, many things can bump us off the correct alignment. One is our feminine tendency to seek emotional validation. We all need physical, spiritual and emotional support at times, but the danger lies in the temptation to reject sound, biblical counsel in favour of someone saying what makes us feel good about ourselves. This is why Reddit groups, social media, secular ‘you go girl, you do you’ sources, and doctrinally weak ‘God will bless whatever you want’ devotionals are so popular amongst Christian women. Yet the Bible tells us a true friend sometimes says things that we will not enjoy hearing but are for our good (Proverbs 27:6), and both the Lord Jesus and the Apostles at times sharply rebuked their audience (Matthew 12:34, Galatians 3:1). We are also vulnerable to wrongly comparing ourselves with others. While the Bible encourages us to learn from Godly examples (1 Corinthians 11:1), it warns that those caught up in the error of “measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (2 Corinthians 10:12b). We may become proud because we’re ‘better’ than so-and-so. Or we become discouraged and tempted to act outside God’s will, because we can’t measure up to so-and-so’s saintliness, or we don’t have something that so-and-so insists anyone truly blessed of God would have. How many of us have found ourselves thinking or heard people say marriage, biological children, or circumstances are evidence of someone’s spirituality? Yet the ratio of women to men in church is typically 3:2 or higher, meaning some faithful Christian women will never marry. God does not always give godly couples children and supposedly ‘good’ circumstances (on this earth) can sometimes be obtained by ungodly means. Instead of comparing ourselves with others, we need to align ourselves with the Word of God, which “is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105), and the Lord will reward our faithful works with incorruptible treasure in heaven (Matthew 6:20;16:27).

Thirdly, Colossians 2:6 is an encouragement to keep moving forward to our destination. In the context of this travel metaphor, we’re not told to sit or stand still or to go off on side tracks, but to keep going. There’s a difference between idle wandering and a focused journey. On my family’s journey home, we were on the road for around 14 hours, including a couple of stops. At one point, someone suggested prolonging a break. But the rest of us shook our heads; “we just want to get home.” Wanting to reach our destination motivated us to keep pressing onwards. It’s the same in the Christian life. In Philippians 3:14, Paul wrote, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” and in 1 Corinthians 9:24b, he urged, “So run, that ye may obtain”. There are times in life when we hit stops or pauses. Trials hit, hearts break, unexpected and unwelcome things blindside us. At such times, I am very thankful for those who have literally let me cry on their shoulder, who have prayed for me, shared Bible verses with me, or have sent me funny cat memes. And yet such pauses must only be temporary. No matter how hard it is to keep going, by faith we must cry out, “Lord, I can’t, but you can” and keep moving forward by faith. Hear Jesus’ heartbreak and yet surrender in His prayer in the garden of Gethsemane; “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt …if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done” (Matthew 26:39-42). Sometimes in life, we sin and go off path, and only the U-turn of repentance will get us back on track. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

In conclusion, we all need to stay alert in our Christian lives. Let’s hold to these three principles, remember our starting point, stay focused on the road and keep moving forward, as we learn to live out Colossians 2:6, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:”