16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. (Col 2:16-17)
In this passage, we discover the distractions we face in our pursuit of personal fellowship with Jesus Christ.
The first distraction is Empty Religion.
God gave Israel practices in the Old Testament to be pictures of His goal with humanity: a personal relationship with all who would believe in His Son. What hinders us in this pursuit is our reluctance to be vulnerable with God. Our plastic approach to life limits the vitality of a personal relationship with Him.
These religious practices including the "New Moon" and the "Sabbath Day" came every month and every week. These practices and celebrations were meant to be a means to fellowship with God, yet we tend to make them a means to knowing about Him.
In v.17 we learn that these rituals were billboards along the highway of life pointing us to Jesus Christ Himself. Once Christ came, these shadows lost their value. The Jews continued to place primary value on the shadow after the reality had come. As a result, they missed experiencing a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
Believers in Christ must not let anyone other than the Lord define us. Being free servants of God, living out of His world, obeying His call, joyfully interacting with all that He has made, going where He sends us, and afraid of nothing, we live out of the freedom Christ earned for us at the cross.
The Christian life now is learning to trust Him, walk with Him, and know Him personally. We learn this life by being defined by Him through His word and through practicing His presence every day.
