No Disqualification by Dudley Hall

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you… Colossians 2:16-18 (ESV)

Many contemporary Christians are living with a sense of disqualification. They are not confident in their approach to God nor in their use of the gifts they have been given. They are actually grieving the Spirit because they are neglecting embracing what he is showing them about their authority and power as God’s people on earth.

The popular version of Christianity is not fully satisfying to most who are trying to live it out. It pushes believers to continually seek more of something instead of “holding steadfastly to the Head from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God” (Colossians 2:19).

The New Testament version, on the other hand, promises that living in conscious fellowship with the living Christ so fulfills our needs and desires that it eliminates the compulsion to find additional satisfaction. What could anyone possibly need outside of Christ? The fullness of the Godhead dwells in him and we are full in him (Colossians 2:9-10).

When the gospel we embrace fails to provide his living presence, we will always look for more of something that will provide. This is the essence of our addictions. They never fully satisfy so we demand more of them until we can’t do without them. So we seek more personal obedience and slip back into the elemental principles of the world and live with a “if I will…. then God will…” mentality. In this mode, we never know if we have done enough to warrant his blessings and so live with a sense of disqualification.

Alternatively, we may seek more knowledge of the strategies of Satan and his world, hoping for some edge in the spiritual warfare arena. We are enamored with demons and their antics and rejoice in the fact that demons are subject to us in Jesus name. We can get so caught up with rebuking the devil that we begin to believe we ourselves are the source of authority and knowledge in this dark world.

Or we seek more mystical experiences including visions and angelic activity. Of course there are valid visions and there are angels that God uses to carry out his purposes for his people, but some find their significance in the unusual visions or the encounters with angels they have experienced, as if a message through a vision or an angel was more valid than a quiet word whispered by the Spirit into the spiritual ears of his simplest saint.

We may seek more self-control over our own desires and began to find the answer in getting better by the power of the will and good planning. We seem to live with a plethora of ways to improve ourselves by applying a new tactic of self-control.

The true gospel approach is different. First it proclaims a new perspective, then gives a following process. Changing the process without a new perspective is futile. Until we see that because of God’s initiative through the cross-event we have a new identity, we will simply continue to feel disappointed in the process we are in. The truth is that we are forever forgiven. Our sins were actually nailed to the cross and fully canceled at his death. We are joined with him in death and resurrection so that we now live in the same Spirit that raised Jesus. We have his name that has all authority since he has already disarmed all satanic powers. We are filled with him as he is filled with his Father. We are essential to his story and fully equipped to do our assignment. Since that is true, we can live it. We no longer choose actions to get an award. We choose actions because we have received the gift.

God has explained the mystery of history through the gospel. When our eyes are opened to what he has done, we will not have any compulsion to add to it, and we will fight any power that tries to detract from it. Just as we are loved “in him,” we are qualified “in him.”