 |
 |
 |
||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||
|
 |
Dear Disciple,
Last time we looked at verse two of Colossians 3. It might be worthwhile to quote verses one and two together for reminder, “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.” We were reminded that though these verses may tempt us to think that the physical order and what goes with it is bad, and the non physical order good, well, the passage really has mostly to do with our looking to and submitting to the risen exalted Jesus Christ who sits at God’s right hand, and ordering all aspects of our real physical lives under His Lordship.
Verse three offers a further word of encouragement, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Remember that the passage started with the supposition that we have been “raised with Christ.” This is death and resurrection language. To have been raised with Christ means that we have previously died with Christ. This process of having and died and been raised with Christ is what the Apostle Paul was speaking about back in chapter 2:11-12, when he said, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”
It is hard to understand how this “works,” but in the mind of God, and as one who would be remade by Him and come to faith in Him, it can be said that when Christ died, the old me died with him, and when he was raised from the dead, the new me was raised with him as well. God does not see me the same way as He did before. I am a new creature. Because I am new, it is appropriate for me not to live as I did before (verses 4-11) and is appropriate for me to live as befits one who has been raised to new life, as a chosen one of God, dearly loved (verses 12-17).
Now all of this is not visible to the world around me. The deepest and most fundamental reality of who I am now is “hidden” from view. But it is not hidden from God. Indeed, I am tucked away in and with Christ, included with Him, in the mind of God. I am “hidden with Christ” in God’s view. And that is the view that is most important to me.
There are days I don’t feel so new. There are days, sadly, I don’t act so new. And even on a good day when I am acting like Jesus would have me act, my neighbor may look at me and shake his head. He may appreciate my own neighborliness but may scoff inside at my claims of rebirth and my claims of knowledge of God. He may think I am just a weird misled odd religious nut. No matter. God knows me, and He knows who I am. And that’s what matters most. The truest reality of who I am is hidden with Christ in Him, and that is good enough for me. |
 |
|
 |
|
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
