Wednesday, February 25, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Colossians 3-4
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 24
Key Verse
Colossians 3:22 — “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God;”
Devotional Thought
Paul writes to a church he had never visited, a congregation in the Lycus Valley where Epaphras had labored and where false teachers were peddling empty philosophy. Into that setting he speaks the plainest kind of arithmetic: if you have been raised with Christ, then seek the things above. It is late February, and many of us are still keeping Lenten disciplines we began only a week ago. The ashes have barely washed from our foreheads. Paul’s word to us is the same as to the Colossians: the resurrection life is not a future hope only but a present orientation. The heart that has been made new must be pointed somewhere, and Paul insists it be pointed at the throne where Christ sits at God’s right hand.
He is not squeamish about naming what must go. Fornication, uncleanness, covetousness — which he calls idolatry, a hard saying in a culture of accumulation. Then the list turns to the tongue: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication, lying. These are not abstract vices but the ordinary furniture of a Tuesday afternoon. He tells us to put them off like a soiled garment and to put on the new man, renewed in knowledge after the image of the One who made him. And in that renewal, the old divisions collapse: Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free. Christ is all, and in all.
Then comes the tender part. As the elect of God, holy and beloved, we are to put on bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering — and above all these, charity, the bond of perfectness. Paul moves from the sanctuary to the household: wives and husbands, children and fathers, servants and masters. He does not leave holiness in the abstract. It must show up in how a husband speaks to his wife, how a father corrects a child without discouraging him, how a servant works when no one is watching. “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.”
Psalm 24 asks who may ascend the hill of the LORD, and answers: he that hath clean hands and a pure heart. That is precisely the person Paul describes — the one who has put off the old man and put on the new. And the psalm ends with the gates lifting up their heads, because the King of glory is coming in. The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. This is the Christ in whom our life is hid, the one who will appear, and we with him in glory. Paul closes with names — Tychicus, Onesimus, Aristarchus, Marcus, Epaphras, Luke — and a request: “Remember my bonds.” Even a prisoner in Rome, chained to a guard, asks for prayer that a door of utterance might open. The King of glory has come in, and His servants are still speaking.
Reflection
- Paul tells the Colossians to “mortify” specific sins and to “put off” anger, malice, and filthy communication. Which of those old garments are you still wearing, and what would it look like this week to put them off deliberately rather than merely resolve to try harder?
- Psalm 24 asks who may stand in God’s holy place, and answers “he that hath clean hands, and a pure heart.” Paul says our life is “hid with Christ in God.” How do those two truths hold together in your own experience — that holiness is required of us, and yet our standing is entirely in Christ?
Prayer
Lord God, who founded the earth upon the seas and established it upon the floods, we lift our heads because the King of glory has come in. We confess that we have too often set our affection on things below — on the approval of men, on the comfort of possessions, on the quick satisfaction of anger. Mortify in us, by Your Spirit, whatever belongs to the old man. Clothe us with bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, and longsuffering, and above all with charity, which is the bond of perfectness. Let the peace of God rule in our hearts. Let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. And whatsoever we do in word or deed, may we do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 24:1 — “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”