Raised With Christ

Colossians 3:1-4

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, --

When we were baptized we were displaying the picture of "having been buried with Him in Baptism and raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead." (2:12) Baptism is the acted-out picture of our dying to the old, natural life, being buried beneath the water, and rising up out of the water to live a new life.

set your hearts on things above, --

Our hearts are the seat of our emotions; we are to passionately love our Lord and desire to be with Him.

where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. --

Jesus Christ has finished His work and is now seated on His throne, as God's "right-hand Man" to rule the Universe with Him.

Set your minds on things above, --

Our minds are the seat of our intellectual thought processes; God "reasons with us," (see Isaiah 1:18), so that our faith proves not to be "blind," but perfectly reasonable according to God's higher, perfect reasonableness. That's why we are to "study" God's Word so that we can understand it correctly (II Timothy 2:15).

not on earthly things. --

Our priorities: the important, eternal things must take precedence over our earthly, urgent things that we must do today.

For you died, --

As Jesus died on the Cross, He took upon Himself each of our deaths, dying in our place as the substitutionary sacrifice; therefore, as His death applies to us, then we died.

and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. --

The life we have now is that eternal life that we will live forever. We will live that life, starting now and continuing forever with Jesus. So our life now is in Christ, hidden from us here in this world because it is in Christ in Heaven, and He is in God the Father; so we have our life in Heaven, inside the Almighty God, that we are beginning to live right now.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, --

Jesus Christ lives, and we live in Him, so He is our life now, not ourselves.

then you will also appear with Him in Glory.

When Jesus comes back to this Earth, He will "rapture" His church, we will all receive our Resurrection bodies, like His, and we will be His partners in setting up His Kingdom here and ruling it with Him, starting with that 1,000 years. We will shine like the sun then, displaying His Glory.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!