Colossians 3:1-5 – “If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. 5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.”  NASB

I hope you were able to digest what we began to unearth in the last session and will join me as we embark on the next leg of our spiritual journey.  In light of the fact that we are dead to the old and alive to the new in Christ and He is our life we now adjust our thinking.  That’s the ‘therefore’.  Therefore, you do this you reprogram your mind and begin to disallow some thought patterns of the past.  Your focus changes and in that change your actions change too.

That brings us to another word found in verse 5, “Consider.”  Consider what?  He says, “Consider the members of your earthly body dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed.”  We are to think a different way now that we are ‘in Christ’ and we are to ‘set our minds on things above’ not on earthly things as before.  The focus is no longer us but Him and His Kingdom.  We are dead to sin and alive to God. We are new persons and Christ is our life.

I am not speaking to everyone but to a certain classification of people. I am speaking to the believer, the Christian, the born-again.  Because, unless a person is ‘born-again’ there is not as significant a benefit in thinking differently.  All the self-help books in the world tell us we can ‘change our lives’ just by ‘changing how we think’.  I contend that they left out the most important element, I do not begin in my thoughts, I begin in my spirit!

Thus, if I have a dead spirit (dead in trespasses and sin), all the positive thinking in the world will do nothing but leave me positively dead.  Positive but still dead.  It won’t change me or make me whole. 

I hope that resonates with everyone.  It is because we are the people who have been ‘raised up with Christ’ that we have hope.  It is because we are now ‘dead to the old’ and ‘alive to the new’ that we have hope.  Christ is now united to our spirits and we are joined to Him as “One Spirit.”

We are the people to whom Jesus Christ has come by His Spirit.  Jesus sits on His throne in Heaven and we are His Body on this earth.  He is ‘in us’ by the Holy Spirit.  He is the comforter and teacher.  He is our guide into all things true and right.  It is to that group of people that God says, “Change Your Thinking!”

Being united to Christ means that we are united to Love Himself.  Love lives on the inside of us and flows out of us.  We are united to Gentleness Himself and we are wise as serpents and harmless as doves.  We are united to Joy and Peace through our being united with Jesus.  We are no longer on the long religious road looking for virtue we have been united to Virtue Himself.  We have Joy, Peace, Patience, Gentleness in the Person of Jesus Christ living in us.  We are ‘new persons’ in Him. 

Now, that we are that new person we need to develop some thoughts that go with that new person, new spirit, and new life.  We have become new and now it is time to be new! 

It is time that we begin thinking of ourselves as who we really are – United with Christ!  Stop thinking of yourselves as how and what you used to be, that person is dead.  Get a whole new set of thoughts and an entirely new pattern of thought.  Because “if” Christ lives “in” me there is nothing to difficult for me.  This is a new life that can face any situation and handle any difficulty.  We have that ability because it is “Christ in us.”  We can forgive the unforgivable.  We can do the undoable.  We can dream the impossible dream and walk in Perfect Peace and Be Who God Says We Are!  No more moaning, groaning, and complaining.  We now embrace life and live it to the fullest because we are learning to “Change our Way of Thinking.”

I will deal with this again, but for now, I will pause and hope this resonates with you and enables you to abandon some deadly or stinking thinking and embrace the newness of life.  May you bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

Have a Great Day in Jesus!