This past Sunday we opened Colossians 3 and asked a plain, searching question: what is actually controlling my mind? Paul tells the church, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (). Where our mind is set turns out to shape everything else.
Where Is Your Mind Set?
“Above” is not a vague, floating spirituality. Paul defines it for us: above is where Christ is, seated and reigning. To set our minds above is to view all of life through the fact that we belong to his kingdom now. This is not a call to stop thinking about ordinary things. We still have homes to keep and work to do. It is a call to a new orientation, a different lens. “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (). The person we used to be is gone, so the way we think changes too.
Who Decides What Matters
A mind set above lets Christ decide what is most important, instead of letting the world decide for us. We start to measure our days by eternity rather than by the moment in front of us. The same ordinary things, our money, our time, our work, get used differently once we are looking at them with Christ in view. Nothing about the material world is evil. What changes is why we do what we do and what we are really living for.
Our Thoughts Become Our Walk
What fills the mind does not stay hidden. Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (). So the honest question is, what am I feeding my mind day after day, and what is it shaping me into? Paul is direct about it. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you” (), and in its place “put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience… and above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (). This is not an overnight change. It grows as we let “the word of Christ dwell in you richly” ().
Why We Can Fix Our Minds There
There is a reason we can turn our minds toward God at all. At Mount Sinai, the nearness of a holy God was so dangerous that the people were warned not to touch the mountain, and they begged Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die” (). The tabernacle, the veil, the priests, all of it marked the distance between sinful people and a holy God. Then Jesus died, and the curtain in the temple tore in two. “Since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus… let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (). The barrier is gone. One day we will even see his face ().
A Mind Held by Christ
That is why Paul can say Christ “is before all things, and in him all things hold together” and that God was pleased “to reconcile to himself all things… making peace by the blood of his cross” (). Setting the mind above is really resting our whole self on the one who opened the way to God. The week will keep pulling our thoughts back down to earth. The steady work of the Christian life is to keep lifting them again to where Christ is.
Come Study With Us
If this is the kind of thinking you want to grow in, we would love to open the Scriptures with you. Plan your visit, and if you want to read what the Bible says about being saved, start here.
