In Colossians 3:1-4 the Bible calls us to set our minds on the things of God. That’s a real challenge in the active, aggressive, loud, fast, and distracting age in which we find ourselves. The call reminds me of how intentional we must be if we are going to seriously follow Jesus. It is too easy to drift and to go with the flow and to get lost in the crowd, to hand our spirituality over to chance or circumstances or probability or possibility.

“Keep seeking the things above, where Christ is,” Paul says (vs. 1). No meandering here but real seeking, the kind of seeking that draws one to commitment and loyalty and priority. It is the kind of seeking where one ceases to allow anyone or anything to trump the seeking. Paul speaks of it as having “died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (vs. 3).

It makes me think that knowing Christ ought to be the number one priority of a person’s life. Knowing Jesus is the kind of thing that trumps everything else. This is life at its best. In fact, Paul comes out and says boldly that Christ “is our life” (vs. 4). “In Him we live and move and exist” (Acts. 17:28), not simply in some sort of cause and effect way but in a way that defines us as Children of God” (Acts. 17:29).

Jesus has changed our lives and has made such an impact upon us that the deepest joy of our lives is to ‘keep seeking the things above where Christ is” and to focus our minds “on the things above” because in the most real of ways our very lives are “hidden with Christ in God.”

In the words of the popular chorus, “Because He lives we can face tomorrow.” Amen. It doesn’t get any better than this.

He Lives. JESUS CHRIST IS LORD.