Col. 3:1-4 “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
The overcoming life because we have been raised with Christ.
These passages contains the key to glorious Christian living. How desperately we need this key in the day of compromise and spiritual darkness. God told us this world would get worse and worse.
1). The foundation is stated in verse 1. Since we have been raised with Christ, has three meanings. Although Lazarus had to be let out of his grave, Jesus did not for He walked right through the wall. He possessed the glorified body that Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 15. His resurrected body had amazing function and was the proof of Who He claimed to be. (Romans 1:4) Jesus told them time and time again that if they wanted proof of Who He really was the resurrection would give that to them. He told the Jews that if they destroyed this temple in three days He would raise it again. Just as Jonah came out after three days, Jesus did likewise and has an amazing ministry at the present. Paul in Acts 17:31 concerning the resurrection of Jesus said this: “Because he hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” How would the Greeks have known about the resurrection of Christ for they were hundreds of miles away? They being made in the image and likeness of Christ, as Paul was, had the Holy Spirit testifying within them concerning what Paul was saying. They therefore had the ability to believe what he was saying. Just like the unsaved that we speak to. Faith is the substance of things not seen but spoken to our hearts. The resurrection proves Who He claims to be.
2). The resurrection is the guarantee that you and I will have glorified bodies. We also have the assurance that we will rise and with a glorified body. (Romans 6:5; 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:20, 23 gives a whole host who will have these bodies). We have that assurance because of His resurrection.
3). Next our mindset has to change because of that resurrection. Christ made a display of His mindset after his resurrection. We are to keep our minds on the things above where Christ is seated. We are united with Him in His resurrection glory. We have been raised up with Him. We are to go much farther than the Apollo project and the moon; beyond the galaxies to where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Not on the things of earth. (See article THE WORLD). Keep seeking, set your mind. We are preoccupied obsessed, distracted with the things of earth. We need help to live above this. The only way is because we been raised with Christ, which is the dynamic and power system by which we can live victorious Christian lives. We need to stop and set our minds on things above. Why are you here and what are you doing? You need to stop and ask some very basic questions. He has been glorified and has been raised and is watching us. He is protecting us and is guiding us, and He's the one behind this article. If He was to rapture us today and set us down, I'm sure he would ask us do you hear what I have to say. That is the Bema Seat that he spoke of. Crowns are gained and lost at this point. His victory gained victory for us every hour of every day whether we believe that or not; all because He rose from the dead.
Three reasons why to set your minds on Christ.
1). Reason number one. Col. 2:3 “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” He knows it all and wants to share it with you as you can accept it. Beginning with Moses He shared with those men on the Emmaus Road, and some of that was concerning creation because He was there. He not only knew how the world began, but he knows how it will end. He is not only Alpha but He is the Omega of the universe. If you want to know anything about anything, He will have you sit down and He will say to you “let’s talk.” He knows where we're going. The last book is the revelation of Jesus Christ, not of St. John, but Him. He spoke it to John of the things that must shortly take place. He knows it all.
2). Reason number two. Col. 2:9-10 “For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.” His human body did not compromise His divine nature. He added that human nature to His divine nature in the incarnation. While He was on this earth He set aside some of the attributes of His divine nature. He did that voluntarily. What an amazing ability. He humbled Himself even to the death on the cross. But He didn't set aside His deity that whole time. That is a great, great biblical truth. We are complete in Him. That is true judicially, we have been reckoned righteous, counted that way, but we need to know that it is true, experimentally. We need desperate help day by day to walk with Him, to trust in Him, to listen to Him, to honor Him, to talk to Him. We need power, we are so weak, so frail, so fragile. We were given a great commission at the end of Matthew and the promise that He is with us to the end. Phil. 4:13 says “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” I can make disciples of all nations, because He is alive. He is resurrected, He resides in heaven. This blog has reached many nations on this earth, because He is risen. Israel and the last days shall finish this task with12,000 missionaries from every tribe, 144,000 of them. They shall be sealed and protected by God to get the job done. Yet the antichrist will try to prevent that. But the gospel shall be preached to all nations at last. And then shall the end come. Peter discovered that if Christ tells you to do something, you can do it, even walk on water. You just have to make sure He told you to do that. We need power, and secondly we need purity. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9. That goes on day after day. We also need love. If we have love for one another, all men will know we belong to Him. Agape love is undeniable. Both Commandments to fulfill the Old Testament law both had love mentioned. We need to bring every thought and intent of the heart captive to Christ.
3) Reason number three. Col. 2:18-19 “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increases with the increase of God.” The body cannot detach itself from the head and be independent. It cannot do its own thing. The hands and the feet and all other attached parts suffer. It begins to decay and rot and becomes despicable, awful. It becomes useless. The body needs to keep attached to the Head Who is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. If you abide in him, you will bear much fruit. Hebrews 5:10-12 spoke of some men that had neglected to stay close to the head ”Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec. Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.”
Col. 3:3 says: “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” This verse says you have died and because of that fact you can do these things. But this is a special kind of death that is identified with His death. When we believed in Jesus we died to the old system of sin, Satan and the world, all those attractions that clouded over and obscured the sight of God in our lives. The minute we were born again, we died. We are dead to the old system, the old nature, the old world, gone, finished, dead. God broke the power structure that prevents us from having victory in Christ. Col. 2:12-13, 20 states this fact. “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances.” These verses state that if with Him you are now able to serve him.
And finally Col. 3:5 “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry." Your body is dead to these things. Think that way, which is what He is saying here. You have victory, because you have died and died with the right Person, Christ. Think like He does. Talk to Him, asking questions, read His book. Your life is hidden with Christ in God.
