Colossians 3:1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

1) God's baptismal promises give us a new ____________. Our identity shapes how we ____________.

2) The more we see ourselves as children of God, the more ______________ we grow with our ____________.

3) The more we see ourselves as sinners saved by grace, the more we strive to ________________ our neighbor as ____________ loved us.

Scripture Readings
Colossians 3:1-15

Take It With You!

Here we will offer thoughts and meditations on the message to help us as we contemplate and discuss and wrestle with what we are hearing.

It is also taught that such faith [in Christ alone for our salvation by God's grace alone] should yield good fruit and good works and that a person must do such works as God commanded for God's sake but not place trust in the them as if thereby to earn grace before God. For we receive forgiveness of sin and righteousness through faith in Christ, as Christ himself says[Luke: "When you have done all things...say, 'We are worthless slaves.'" The Fathers also teach the same thing. For Ambrose says: "It is determined by God that whoever believes in Christ shall be saved and have forgiveness of sins, not through works but through faith alone, without merit."
The Augsburg Confession, Article VI. Concerning the New Obedience

Baptism is an identity making event. Having been baptized into Christ's death (Rom. 6:3) and "buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too [through baptism] might walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4 ESV). The disciple is numbered among the forgiven and receives the Holy Spirit who starts them on the warpath against the flesh the rest of their tension-filled life. This is what it means to live simul iustus et peccator (simultaneously sinner and saint); that is, as one daily being raised through the waters of baptism for our justification (Rom. 4:25) and at the same time needing the drowning of the old man with its works of sin (Rom. 6:6; Col. 3:9).
John Bombaro, A Catechetical Imitation of Christ. in Modern Reformation vol. 18, num. 2, March/April 2009.