Set Your Heart & Mind on Things Above

Colossians 2:20-3:11 The Colossians Were a great deal like us in that when they came to Christ, they tended to take the same principles that they used in their old way of life and bring it into their new. They saw and worshiped angels and in their false humility they tried to lay this on all the others who came in. As ascetics they had all these minute laws and rules about what not to be eaten or done, i.e., “Don’t do this.”, “Don’t do that.”, “Don’t taste that.”, etc. Paul tells them that although these rules sound so noble and helpful, they really have no power to make any changes of lasting value in a person’s life. Paul brings them back again to the significance of their baptism, a point that we also need to be often brought back to. Our baptism represents our death with Christ - the verse says, 2:12, “having been buried with him through baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead." We were dead in sins, but He made us alive in Christ. In chapter 3, Paul give us the real answer for freedom, and the perspective that we need to begin seeing things the way they need to be seen. It has to do with setting our hearts and our minds on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, not on things here on earth. “We died, and our life is now hidden with Christ in God.” 3:3. To set our heart is to make Christ and were He is the object of our dreams and desires and goals. When our heart is set on something, everything that we do is somehow involved in that frame of reference. As we set our minds then we consciously began to live and behave according to the truth of our new condition in Christ. Since we are dead to sin, we can stop gratifying the desires that are attached to the old way - put them to death. Fill your time and your mind with things associated with the new life in Christ.