Tradition and Philosophy? Hmm…

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Colossians 2:6 – 10

 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,

rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;

and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

 Today I want to talk about the fullness of Christ in our daily lives. Christ should be our one and most important priority in our lives. But sometimes, the reality says otherwise. We do believe in Christ Jesus. We do believe in His miraculous works. But sometimes, we also believe in other little things as well that can become our downfall without we realize it.

Let’s say that you come from a family that has a rich family tradition. This kind of family usually is an Asian family. The Asian people really have a rich family tradition like praying to the ancestors and the dead spirit, etc. And let’s say they repented and receive Christ as their Savior. But they still hold on to the family tradition to come to their parents or grandparents graveyard to pray for them or to give them burnt offerings. I myself had done this long time ago, and I felt kind of stupid after I know the truth in verse 8 about our living God Jesus. Check this out:

Job 7:9

As the cloud disappears and vanishes away, so he who goes down to the grave does not come up.

 This verse means that once people died, their spirit cannot wander on this earth again. Those ghost stories about the spirit of the dead being back from the grave and was angry was not true because the Bible told us so in Job 7:9. Those ghosts are real, but they are not the spirit of the dead. They are the devils from the underworld, coming up to this world to deceive people of God from the truth by misguiding them with earthly tradition.

Also, certain philosophies can also become our downfall if we believe in them. Around the times of Jesus, there were lots of philosophies that were based on many different doctrines such as Gnosticism, Hedonism, Asceticism, etc. Gnosticism is an understanding where all kinds of polytheistic views come together. The people who follow this understanding call themselves a Gnostic. They really praise the realm of the gods and they felt that they have a super secret understanding that can brought them to heaven. This understanding was called Gnosis. And from this understanding, many philosophies are born.

Hedonism was an understanding where humans must only follow earthly joy and happiness. The Epicureans follow this Hedonism doctrine. The opposite from this doctrine is Asceticism where humans must have a great self-denial and refrain themselves from worldly pleasures. This is good, but this does not save us from eternal damnation! Only Jesus is the way to the Heaven.

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Of course there were still a lot of those doctrines and philosophies that I had not gone into, but the point is, don’t ever be tricked by those empty philosophical views! Many were misguided by those kinds of views around the times of Jesus.

And so, let us be full in Christ even in our daily lives. Be radical in Him and believe only to Him, the Living God Jesus. Check these out:

 Revelation 3:16

 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

 And,

Matthew 6:24

 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

 From the two verses above, we know that we should not be lukewarm by believing in Christ Jesus but also believe in earthly traditions and philosophies; because we cannot serve God and mammon at the same time! Choose God because He has sacrificed Himself for us at the cross. We are complete in Him, and in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Be refreshed 🙂