A Word in Season: Things Above (Colossians 3:2)

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The psalmist cried out, My soul clings to the dust, revive me according to your word.

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That grief and sorrow that he felt over his soul taken up with the things of this world, attached too much to things that were passing away, is reflected also in the

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Apostle Paul's exhortation in Colossians 3, where in verse 2 he says,

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Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. That exhortation presumes that we already have life in Christ Jesus.

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It's built on the first verse of the chapter, If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.

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Now that's not just the if of possibility, that's the if of consequence. Because you have been raised with Christ.

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If indeed that is the case, then this should follow. Seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.

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We have been, if believers, truly raised from the dead in Christ Jesus.

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We live in him, we live with him and for him. And so our attention and our affection is devoted now to him.

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So where Christ is at the right hand of the majesty on high, that is where our eyes and our hearts instinctively should turn.

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The trouble is it's not as instinctive as it ought to be. And so the Apostle Paul tells us that we are to set our minds on things above and not on things on the earth.

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In other words, as redeemed and regenerated men and women, we now need to engage those renewed affections and that renewed will in seeking after what truly belongs to God.

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We're going to have to fix our affections on Christ and on the things that belong to him.

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We're going to have to leave aside the pressures and the pleasures that so often dominate our thinking and deliberately dwell upon something that is heavenly rather than earthly.

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And you will know if you have any experience of the Christian life just what a battle that can be, how hard it is when the world seems to be pressing in upon us and demanding so much of our attention that we are almost obliged, we feel, to be taken up with the things of this world.

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And it's not just the demands, it's the diversions. It's the easy indulgence, the lazy and even carnal indulgence in the things of this world where we can just, as it were, float in a sea of emptiness, frothiness, sometimes even perversity, and we're just carried away on the gentle current of this world's enticements.

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But no, says the Apostle, that is a soul that clings to the dust and we want our minds to be set on things above.

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That means we need to know those things, which means we need to study those things.

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And having studied them to know them, it means that we need to meditate upon them.

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We need to turn our minds to God himself in all his glorious majesty.

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We need to turn to God as he's made himself known in that Christ who now sits at his right hand so that there we see his goodness, his mercy, his truth, his justice, his loving kindness, all the attributes of God shining forth most graciously and gloriously in the person of Jesus Christ who died for our sins and rose again from the dead on our behalf.

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We need to think about the things which truly please God, the things which are heavenly in their tone and in their content.

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We need to be much about our Bibles, delving into the truth that God has made known.

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We need to think about the kingdom of God, not just that which is to come, but that which now is, that kingdom of grace to which we belong if we have been bought with the blood of the lamb.

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It's the church of Jesus Christ then which ought to take up our attention if we are thinking about heavenly things.

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And because it is not just a kingdom of present grace, but also a kingdom of future glory, it is good for us to consider what lies ahead.

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And so if we have been raised with Christ, let us not be always dwelling upon the things of this life, caught up and taken up either with its pressures or with its pleasures, but let us set our mind on things above, not on things of the earth.