This is how Colossians starts out: “This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy.”

Isn’t it awesome that Paul knows exactly who he is and what his main purpose is? How might I introduce myself: This blog is from Dave, an elder at church of the Chimes, chosen by God to share a sliver of truth about Jesus with you today.

Here is the sliver that I would like to share. Did you know that regardless of what ugly things you might have done in the past, today you are viewed by God as holy and blameless! Yes, God sees you without a single fault! This is astonishing to me. Not only are you and me forgiven for our ugly behaviors, thoughts, words, etc. But God has completely forgotten them and sees us as Holy, pure, righteous, perfect, and faultless.

This truth has been revealed throughout many of our readings leading up to today in the New Testament challenge. But today it was revealed again in verse 22 which speaks of how God the father views us today. Here’s what verse 22 says, “Yet now he (God) has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he (God) has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.”

Notice that as described in this verse we did nothing to deserve being viewed like this by God. First of all, it was God the father who reconciled us to himself. Second of all, it was by virtue of the physical death of God the son (Jesus) who served the sentence for our violations and thereby took away our sins so that we can be seen as blameless. And third of all, it is God the father who brings us into his presence, we did not approach him. God did it all. We did not earn it, and possibly we did not even want it. But he wanted to be reconciled to us and he wanted to be with us.

Pretty awesome, huh? I think we should celebrate!