COLOSSIANS 3:1-4 – “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. 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.”
THEME OF THE DAY: AS WE THINK SO WE LIVE. A profitable word study in our Bibles would be that of the “mind.” Some sources indicate the word appears at least 386 times but since the mind includes the heart, that number would be a lot greater. Whatever the number, a lengthy study would unfold!
When it comes to the mind, the highest expression of its importance in the Christian life is in the Great Commandment given by our Lord Jesus – “But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets”” (Matthew 22:34-40).
Jesus instructs us to “love God with all our minds.” That seems strange in a world that defines love contrary to the Bible. The world uses flawed descriptions such as emotion, infatuation, and lust. Granted there are feelings involved in biblical love, but scriptures define love beyond just affections of the heart. It includes the will and mind. And that takes us to this most important truth that establishes the theme for today’s devotion – as we think so we live. Our minds, and what we place our thoughts on determine who and what we live for, and it is easy to see how that applies to our loving the Lord; to love Him includes thinking of Him, even being consumed in our minds with Him.
In today’s scripture, the Apostle Paul points us to the proper thinking in the Christian. His main emphasis is that the believer directs his or her thoughts to meditate and ponder the realities in the next world – “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”
By anchoring our minds in heaven, we correctly interpret the world by seeing the folly and deception of living for it and its fleeting pleasures. However, this is not an easy switch to just throw. The verbs Paul uses “seek” and “set” imply effort, strong effort, and personal resolve. For instance, the sentence “set your minds on things above, not on things that are on the earth” literally means “direct your thoughts away from this world and place them on heaven.” This means working hard to not be conformed in our thinking by the world but by the Word. The Bible must shape our thoughts, and this requires work, hard work, but delightful work.
It is so true and never overstated, how we think, even what we think on, will determine how we live. Thoughts turn to attitudes and then to actions. May the Lord help us to discipline our thoughts to focus upon the things above which will lead us to live in a manner pleasing unto Him.
PRAYER: Lord, help me to discipline my thinking to reflect Your Word, Your desires, Your will, and Your purposes.
REFLECTION: It is always true; we make time for the things more important to us, and as we think, we live.