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“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” Colossians 3:2-3
A few years ago teenagers in England, mine included, spent too much time playing the silly game Would you rather? Endless questions to each other along the lines of “Would you rather be able to run at 100 mph or fly at 20 mph?” or “Would you rather be invisible or be able to fly?” These were the nicer ones, compared with the options to choose between eating slugs or spiders and so on.
But rather than giving us a choice. “Would you rather?” the Apostle Paul tells us very clearly to set our minds on the things above. Not on earthly things.
So what does it mean to set our minds on things above? Well, in one sense, it can be tempting to just read the Bible quickly or factually, reading it for the sake of reading it without ever dwelling on the words in our hearts and minds. Not taking the time to meditate on them and letting them speak to our lives right now. Instead, we should be setting our minds, making sufficient space to let the truth of scripture shape everything about us, all that we think and say and do.
The Apostle goes on to give us two reasons for setting our minds above, but in doing so actually presents us with two truths that should give our hearts cause to soar in worship and adoration, if we were to rest on them for a while. And the result of that can only be us wanting to spend even less time setting our minds on earthly things.
“For you died…”
Jesus died in our place on the cross, the thing that only he could do, and in doing that he paid the penalty for our sin. That means all of us who accept Jesus as Lord of our lives have died to sin along with the guilt and condemnation that accompanies it.
To be clear, we are not the finished article. We still live in a world of sin and succumb to the temptations that are always with us. And verse 5 of this passage onwards warns us about what some of those are. But the fear of rejection by God, the fear of future punishment for our wrongdoing is not something that should be giving any room to, we have died to sin.
“…and your life is now hidden with Christ in God”
We are meant to understand something of the security and protection that comes with this. But it is much more than that. If we are hidden with Christ in God then we must also be where Christ is – in God. In Galatians 2 we are told that Christ lives in us. Romans 8 also tells us that we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit. So as children of God we are wonderfully, miraculously, somehow enveloped by the Godhead.
Not that we become God, but that we are caught up in this wonderful tangle of relationships. That in and through and with Christ we have access to the intimate relationship of the Godhead. Fellowship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Take more than a moment today to set your minds on these things that are from above and let your heart rejoice.
John McLernon
Mission Director, Crosslinks UK
