The Short Cut That Isn’t There
Most of us love a shortcut. We tap “fastest route” on our phones when traffic thickens on the freeway, even though Siri’s suggestion usually means trading one bottleneck for another. We take the escalator instead of the stairs. We eye the Monopoly “Do not pass Go” card and wish life actually worked that way. Shortcuts feel like winning.
On a recent Sunday at Grace Bible Church of Phoenix, pastor Josh White worked through Colossians 2 and warned us that the shortcut we most want—the one that gets us to God faster, more surely, more spiritually impressive—is the very thing the Bible tells us to refuse. The third in a series on the false “add-ons” the early church faced (after legalism and mysticism), this one is called asceticism. It’s the oldest of the three, and the easiest to miss, because asceticism doesn’t look like rebellion. It looks like devotion.
The Goal Has Already Been Set
Before Josh named the shortcut, he made sure we knew where we were trying to go. The destination matters, because if you don’t know where you’re headed, almost any path can sound reasonable.
God’s goal for us, he said, is perfection. That word tends to make us flinch—our perfectionist tendencies have already failed us in a hundred small ways this week. But the Greek word Paul uses, telios, doesn’t mean “without flaw the way you’d grade a final exam.” It means finished. Complete. A building project brought to its end. Nothing more is necessary for the structure to stand.
“Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”
— Colossians 1:28
And here’s the part that should make us stop pacing: that work is already done. Christ has already presented us mature. We have been qualified. We have been delivered. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. The verb tenses in Colossians 1 and 2 are all past tense, and that’s the entire point. We don’t have to complete the project. Jesus already did.
“And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.”
— Colossians 1:21-22
Josh walked us through 1 Thessalonians 5 to reinforce it. “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” The “he will surely do it” is the promise on which everything else rests. We are not the contractors. We are not the inspectors. We are the residents of a house Someone else built.
The Shortcut: Treat Your Body Harshly
Given that the destination is secured, why does Paul spend so much time warning against add-ons? Because the add-ons feel productive. They feel like devotion. And Satan, Josh pointed out, is masterful at convincing us that more effort equals more grace.
The third add-on, asceticism, is the one most of us in 21st-century America assume doesn’t apply to us. Asceticism is severe fasting beyond what Scripture requires. It’s abstaining from foods Scripture permits. It’s rough clothing, sleeping on the ground, denying marriage, refusing comfort—all in the name of “elevating” the spirit by mistreating the body. The assumption underneath it is that the physical world is bad and the spiritual world is good, and if you can punish the flesh hard enough, the soul will finally fly free.
If that sounds extreme to you, you’re right. Josh suggested this is the least common shortcut for modern Americans, who are more about instant gratification than self-denial. But the same logic shows up in subtler forms. The Christian who reads the Bible four hours a day because they’re afraid God’s grace isn’t sufficient. The believer who gives away everything they own hoping God will finally love them back. The person who avoids all pleasure as if joy were spiritually suspicious. The mechanism is identical: I’ll earn my way up by making myself small.
“These have indeed an appearance of wisdom, in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”
— Colossians 2:23
That last phrase matters. Paul’s diagnosis isn’t that asceticism fails because it’s too hard. It’s that it fails because it doesn’t actually do what it claims to do. Diet Oreos still call to you from the bag. The body you punish doesn’t get more spiritual—it gets more tired. And the energy you spent on outward discipline is energy you didn’t spend on the inward work of trusting Christ.
Josh pointed us to a fascinating footnote in church history: a few hundred years after Paul, this ascetic impulse hardened into monasticism. The desert fathers of Egypt—true Christians, sincere seekers—embraced solitude, poverty, fasting, and celibacy as the path to greater spirituality. Their motives weren’t wrong. They wanted holiness. But the framework was wrong, and the result was a slow drift away from the sufficiency of Christ toward the sufficiency of effort. It can happen to any of us. It probably already has, in some corner of our Christian lives.
“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”
— Titus 3:4-5
The Way: Walk, Grow, Give Thanks
If shortcuts won’t get us there, and works won’t get us there, what does? Josh gave us three pictures from Colossians 2:6-7, and each one is the opposite of a sprint.
First, we walk. Not run. Walking is steady, consistent, sure, confident. It’s a metaphor for moving forward in the completed salvation we already have, without grabbing for the next thing. Hebrews 12:1 calls it “running with endurance the race that is set before us”—which sounds contradictory until you realize that endurance-paced running and sprinting are not the same activity. Sprinting is what shortcuts always demand. Endurance is what faith actually requires.
“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith.”
— Colossians 2:6-7
Second, we grow in place. Dig deep roots where God has planted you. Josh took us to Psalm 1, where the blessed person is “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.” Trees don’t unplant themselves looking for better soil. They send roots deeper into the soil they already have. Same with us: if our salvation is secure in Christ, the call isn’t to chase the next spiritual experience. It’s to stay where we are and let the roots go down.
Third, we give thanks. “Abounding in thanksgiving,” Paul writes. Josh pointed out that gratitude and contentment are twin sisters. When we know our salvation is finished, we stop chasing. We thank God for what is already ours. And the thankfulness bleeds into every other area of life—our work, our marriages, our health, our embarrassments. Paul told Timothy that “godliness with contentment is great gain,” because we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it.
So What?
Here’s the question Josh left us with, and it’s worth sitting with for longer than the drive home. Have you been taking a shortcut your whole life? Have you been quietly adding things to your faith—not because they’re bad, but because deep down you’re not sure the finished work of Jesus is enough?
If so, you don’t need more discipline. You don’t need more programs or more sacrifice. You need to remember what God has already said is done. You are already presented holy and blameless before him. Christ has already qualified you. The Spirit has already been poured out. The work is finished, and your only job is to believe it.
If you’ve never put your faith in Christ at all, the offer still stands. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved. Romans 10:9-10 is as simple as that. No shortcut required. Just the long, steady walk of faith in the One who has already done the work for you.
Scripture References
- Colossians 1:21-22 — Presented holy and blameless before him
- Colossians 1:27-28 — Christ in you, the hope of glory; present everyone mature in Christ
- Colossians 1:9-14 — Strengthened, qualified, delivered, transferred, redeemed
- Colossians 2:6-7 — Walk in him, rooted and built up, abounding in thanksgiving
- Colossians 2:16 — Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink
- Colossians 2:20-23 — Asceticism, severity to the body, of no value
- 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 — Sanctified completely; spirit, soul, and body kept blameless
- Titus 3:4-7 — Saved by mercy, not by works done in righteousness
- Hebrews 12:1 — Run with endurance the race set before us
- Psalm 1:1-3 — Like a tree planted by streams of water
- Jeremiah 17:7-8 — Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord
- Romans 10:9-10 — Confess and believe; you will be saved
- 1 Timothy 4:1-5 — Those who forbid marriage and require abstinence; everything created by God is good
- 1 Timothy 4:7-9 — Train yourself for godliness; bodily training is of some value, godliness of value in every way
- Matthew 6:16-18 — When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites