Immerse: Messiah - Flipbook - Page 222
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IMMERSE
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MESSIAH
1:12-25
filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share
in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. For
he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into
the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave
our sins.
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
He existed before anything was created and is supreme over
all creation,
for through him God created everything
in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see
and the things we can’t see—
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen
world.
Everything was created through him and for him.
He existed before anything else,
and he holds all creation together.
Christ is also the head of the church,
which is his body.
He is the beginning,
supreme over all who rise from the dead.
So he is first in everything.
For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
and through him God reconciled
everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.
This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has
reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body.
As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and
blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.
But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t
drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good
News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul,
have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it.
I am glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the church. God has given me
