Steps For Focusing On Hidden Life

Colossians 3:1-17

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of GOD. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in GOD. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of GOD is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Therefore, as GOD's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the LORD forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to GOD. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the LORD Jesus, giving thanks to GOD the Father through Him.

We're gonna go paragraph by paragraph with this Scripture. But first pray for this to be His words that reach out to us.

We have been raised to life with Christ Jesus who is seated with GOD above in Heaven. Because He is the One who has given us everything we will need for all eternity, we should focus on Him at all times. He deserves all of our focus. It can be so hard in this life with the amount of distractions in this life. How many times while reading this are we going to look at the text or Facebook message we just got? It's so easy to get distracted from the actual time we set aside for GOD, let alone our daily lives at school and work and with friends. It's a hard discipline to have, but still so very necessary. The reason we find it so easy to look away from GOD is that we just can not see the treasures and glory of heaven. All we have to see is the world around us on earth. There is nothing else to see except that because our minds cannot comprehend what lies in heaven. They are things that our eyes cannot see. This is why the Scripture says that our life is hidden with Christ Jesus, because it literally is hidden until Jesus comes back and takes us up with Him. Only then is it revealed to us as to what we are truly striving for in this life with the commands based in such a crazy Love that makes no sense. So how to we focus on what is to come if we cannot see it? By taking steps to do so. The first is to cut off what is wrong according to the Bible. Bringing us to the next paragraph.

 We are asked to put to death whatever belongs to out earthly nature: the "sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry." We are to put them to DEATH. That does not mean to just not do them at church or when with other Christians, no it means to never do them. It means to work on killing the part of us that commits to these things. To not fill ourselves with the earthly pleasures of this world. Because these things are not what leads to pleasure. They are temporarily good feeling, until we arrive at the point when GOD's wrath comes. The passage tells us that it is because of these things that GOD's wrath is coming. We must cut them off and not live in them anymore because we have received the new hidden life with Jesus Christ. By cutting them off we get rid of the parts of us that lead to our bad reactions in this life, labeled here as "anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from our lips." When we stop chasing after the earthly things and start focusing on GOD, we no longer have the anger, rage, and malice towards others because we see the point of this life. The earthly things just stop being worth the trouble that we begin to see they truly are. We are able to start Loving each other and stop our slander and filthy language. We are able to stop our lying as we are continually changed by our growing knowledge in Christ. That is a major step in in focusing on GOD: not thinking there is a point to stop working on changing in the knowledge of Christ Jesus. It is continuous change until our life is fully revealed at Christ's coming. In this knowledge, there is no difference between any of us. Paul lists the stereotypically opposites in his own time at the end of the paragraph. But he ends it by saying there is none of these, meaning that there is no difference. This is because Jesus "Christ is all, and is in all." There is no favoritism in Jesus Christ, He is now for all who want to accept Him. As we are in Him, He is in us and has become our life. The next step after starting to rid ourselves of our sinful ways is to start bringing in the Good from GOD.

Paul uses a metaphor for the next paragraph of how we should view practicing the Good of GOD. He writes,  "Therefore, as GOD's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." As GOD's chosen people we should clothe ourselves with these things. When we go outside, we wear clothes. They are sometimes noticed, sometimes not, but we always have them on when we go out into the world. We usually have them on even when we're alone. They bring warmth and protect us from what could be around us. In the same way, we should think about wrapping ourselves with these qualities and wearing them where ever we go whenever we are there. We should have compassion, the ability to empathize and feel for others, kindness, Loving conviction for us and others, humility, recognition that we are meant to be servants for GOD first and then others and ourselves last, gentleness, the gift of feeling GOD's Love and comfort and sharing it with others, and patience, the act of waiting on GOD for the good that He has in store for us in the future. The last one I find to be the most important here, and the one that links to the rest of the paragraph. We need patience to respond to the call of forgiving others and waiting on the life that has not been revealed to us. To round off the paragraph Paul goes back to the metaphor and says over all these virtues we should put on Love, which binds all of them together in perfect unity. Without Love, all of it is meaningless and can scatter everywhere for different reasons. We have nothing if we do not have Love. This makes the key of this step in focusing on Christ Jesus. We need to take in as much of the Love that we can receive from GOD in this life in order to link us to the life that is still hidden. Because the Love we have in this life is truly not the complete Love that GOD will pour on us in the hidden life, but still part of it, we need to focus on taking in and sharing as much of it as possible. So what comes from pushing out the sin and bringing in the Love? Peace. The next paragraph starts the next step. 

When we have started the previous steps, we start feeling the Peace of GOD. So Paul starts the next section by telling us to let this Peace rule in our hearts because we are called together in peace. We are to let this feeling of no sin and great Love bring in a relief of no worrying or earthly pains for this world, but a start of a separation from it. This is the feeling of peace that we can experience here on earth. We become as free from pain and worry as we can on earth in the wake of GOD's Love here on earth that is unclouded by worldly things. The more we follow the previous steps, the more it grows as well and the better we feel. So Paul adds an extension: "And be thankful." We must make sure that we look to GOD and remember that He is the cause of this goodness we have and the peace we now get to experience. He is the source of all these words and the lessons and the causes of them. Which is why we must remember that it all started for us with His words, His Promise to us through His own words. Paul writes that we must let His words dwell richly within us as we teach and sing. To dwell richly is a picture of having so much that there's excess of it to pour out around us. We must be full of His words as we worship. To worship without thinking about GOD's words is impossible. Our worship and teachings and everything good and Loving is based on His words. This is the next step, to dwell in His word and fill ourselves with it as we let His peace rule us. His word drives us to change more and more and let more of His Love in. These 3 steps are a never ending cycle that leads to another constant step: To do everything in the name of the LORD Jesus while giving thanks to GOD the Father through it all.

As we work to change in GOD, take in His Love, and let His peace and word rule our hearts, we start to naturally do everything in the life for GOD in His name. We start to focus on doing everything for Him instead of ourselves. To do everything in this life for GOD, is the definition of living for the life to come. To focus on the life to come is to focus on the part of it that is already here: our LORD Jesus Christ. He is all and is in all, therefore, He is our life to come, and is in us already. To focus on the life that is hidden, we just need to focus on Him in this life, "And be thankful."

Thank You For Reading

Long Live Jesus Christ

Amen