How Then Shall We Live?

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Look with me at Colossians 3:1-4. What we see here simply is the call for believers to orient their entire lives around the present reality of who they are in Christ and the future reality of our resurrection and glorification that is to come. Believers are commanded to allow our status in Christ to dictate how we live.

Look at v. 1. Everything about our life is to be focused on who we are in Christ. We are to take everything back to the sure and certain position and status we occupy as believers and build our lives on this foundation. Everything in our lives is to be taken back to the gospel thru which we have been saved and built upon the facts of who we are in Christ.

This is not inconsequential or unimportant. We are talking about true power to live out the Christian life. Look back at 2:19. We saw it from John 15 – we must abide in Christ alone for strength and power to live as believers. Apart from Christ we can do nothing. Nothing of real and eternal significance will be accomplished in our lives apart from our abiding in Christ.

Spiritual fulfillment is found in understanding and applying who we are in Christ to our everyday lives by faith. This is the issue here – where is fullness found? In externals, such as drink and food and festivals and visions and such? Or in Christ? What Paul says is the same thing he always has said throughout the NT and specifically Colossians – fullness is found in Christ.

Look at Col. 2:8-10. Fullness is found in Christ. Believers are complete in Christ and their fullness is found in being in Christ. Look nowhere but Christ. Turn your eyes upon Jesus as the song says. Focus on who we are in Christ.

Why we say we can never move beyond the gospel. We need to grasp more and more the gospel and its implications on our lives, the power to live as we have been called to live. To look for other things or the things of this world to do for us what only the gospel has done shows that we still need to grow in our understanding of our salvation and the gospel. That we need to grasp more fully the gospel and its implications for our lives. They didn’t understand their completeness in Christ.

Our starting point for everything in life is us going back to who we are in Christ. Abiding here in this truth. What kingdom do we belong to? Whose am I? Whose glory am I here to declare and seek? And then let these answers dictate our living. Believers are to seek the things above by setting our minds on Christ and daily committing to the values and ethics of Christ and His kingdom. This would address so much of what we struggle with and the lies we believe about God and ourselves.

Christianity is seeking to align our lives with our true identity in Christ so that we experience real fullness. Our earthly living then becomes a picture of our reconciliation with God thru Christ and the gospel. It is living now in light of who we are and will be fully in the future. It is another way of saying that we live to the glory of Christ. Our pattern of earthly living reflects the heavenly reality of who we are in Christ.

Let this be you believer. Fix your mind on the things above, even now in the time we live. How applicable is this truth for today and these times. Let the certainty of God’s promises bring peace to these troubled and uncertain times. Fill your mind with these through Bible study and let God’s faithfulness overwhelm you and guide you no matter what we face.

Not the election. Not COVID-19. Not masks or no masks. Fix your mind on God and His promises thru the gospel.