Hidden with Christ in God

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

I know that this seems like a strange image to use on a blog, but honestly, it was the closest thing that I could find to convey the message of today's blog: Hidden with Christ in God.

This is a concept that we likely know, but it is so often not lived out by believers.  I know this on a personal level.  

You see, Paul has told us in Colossians 3:3 that we "have died and [our]  life is hidden with Christ in God."  The problem is two-fold in my walk with the Lord.  I don't live like I am dead, and I often can be seen more by the world than Christ can.  Can you relate?

In this short verse there exists both conflict for my flesh, to live as though I am dead to myself, and victory for the Spirit within me, as I discover the joy of allowing Christ to live His life through me.  

The struggle is found for me in living this verse out daily.  I know my need to die daily, yet as the moments of each day present themselves, the easy ones and the difficult ones, I am prone to forget that I am supposed be dead.  Literally I have been declared dead, yet I, more often than not, discover that my will, my wants, my desires, my opinions are quite alive and at work in me.  I forget in most moments that Jesus is the light that is to be shown out of me.  It is His light, and not me, that is to be the brightest.  Me and my flesh should be so dead that I appear to be out of focus, while the light of Christ should be able to be most clearly seen.

The  resolution to the conflict in my flesh of trying to remain alive can only be in living my life hidden, for it is no longer my life that is relevant, but His as it comes forth out of me.  His life flowing out of me is what should be in clear focus to the world around me.  As a converted believer, I no longer have a life of my own to live.  I am DEAD, and my dead life is now overshadowed by the life of Christ within me!

Look back at the picture and ask yourself the questions it now begs of you.  Are you the brightest and most in-focus part of the picture, or are the works Jesus is doing through you what the world can clearly make out?  Are you in clear focus, or is the Light of the world?  Is the image of your flesh fading away is it gives way to the life of Christ?

My prayer today is that I will be so surrendered, and then so obedient, that the world will cease to see me, but only my Savior at work in a vessel wholly yielded to Him.  

Consider making that your prayer as well.  What difference would it make in your family, city, state, country, and world if you lived life dead, and you were hidden away by the Lord of your life?

FAITH LOOKS UP! -- Colossians 3:2

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

Yesterday, the message of "seeking things above" was presented.  The next verse in Colossians 3 mimics that same idea.  This is what it says:

"Set your minds on  the things that are above, not the things that are on earth."  (Col. 3:2)

In order to seek what is above, we must take a critical first step.  We will have to reprogram our minds and the way we think about these "things". We must train our minds to be set on the things of God, rather than on the things of this world.  The flesh looks around our world to see what it is that  we desire for ourselves.  But faith looks up; it desires the things that God desires.

My problem with living out this particular Scripture passage is this:  I know I should seek the things of God and set my mind on them.  I say that I should seek them. And I often teach others, as well,  their need to look up and to seek after the eternal things (even as I am teaching you right now). But to actually put this into practice in my day-to-day, even moment-to-moment life, well let's just say I typically fail, and fail miserably in practicing this.

It is true that there must be a shift of focus (Col. 3:1), but before there can be a true shift, there must be a firm and decisive choice,  to choose God over the lust of the eyes, flesh, and world.  For us to change our focus from looking around us to looking above to God, we must begin to practice a "line in the sand"  type of theology, making a right decision, choice by choice.  The line in the sand can be called the "choice line." On one side of the choice line is what is of this world; and on the other side is what is of the Spirit.  This is the scenario for every choice we will make.  There are no other choices.  

So if we will set our minds on what is of the Spirit, first and foremost, then we will have a greater ability, and even a greater desire, to begin to seek what is above.  Revival comes to a heart and life that is determined to be set on the God-things that it seeks, attempting to keep our mind from returning to a place where it seeks the world's things again.  The God-things will never be found on earth.  They can only be found where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. That is the place of the "above".   Faithful followers of Christ will learn to walk through life looking up!  

Are you looking up, or are you looking around you?  Above or on earth?

I am back!!!!

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC

I know it has been a long time since I have posted a blog, and I have missed it so very much.  Now that my summer projects are nearly completed, I am back!  And I am excited to share with you what the Lord has been teaching me this summer.

Last May, after teaching my Ladies Group at church on Colossians 3: 1-17, I challenged them to take the summer and attempt to memorize the entire passage.  Realizing that it would just be completely "wrong" for me to ask it of them, and not follow through myself, I set out with a little notebook and a sincere desire to memorize the passage and hear what the Lord would speak to me about it. 

Now here is the embarrassing part.  I love the Word of God, but I have never been very interested in the memorizing part.  I am quite sure that the Lord would have loved for me to be memorizing along with my study, but I never thought that it was for me.  What a shame!  I have found it to be a delight to my soul, and I will be aiming at memorizing more complete passages in the future.

Colossians 3: 1-17 is chocked full of meaty tidbits that every believer should not only know, but LIVE!  This passage is to be walked out!  It is a challenge to even the most seasoned Christian, but none-the-less, it is part of our holiness training.   The closer look at this passage leaves me with just one question, "What would happen in the world if every believer took these words to heart, surrendered themselves to the Holy Spirit within, and just allowed Him to live it our through them?"  I know what the answer is:  REVIVAL in us and the opportunity for the lost to see Christ!

So let me begin, taking one verse at a time, and I pray that the Lord will be revealing more to you than what I share.  I will not be going into great detail, but instead, just offering a morsel to think about, just a few comments from my little journal.  I pray that we will all heed the call and be challenged to actually begin to live the life that Paul is describing.  

Colossians 3: 1     "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God."

I spend far too much time seeking the things that are here on earth.  What do you seek?  If you are like me, the first thing that I am going to have to do to  "seek the things that are above" is change my focus.  I tend to look out and around, but Jesus is saying, "Look up!  Look where I am!  I am sitting next to My Father.   You must train yourself to set your eyes on Me and My Kingdom."  

Now, to me that means a shift in all of my thinking.  It means that I will have to change my gaze in order to have a correct view --  a view of what is eternal.  When I change what I think about, then that automatically should bring about a change in what I focus on.  So, my "seeking the things above" means that I will have to think differently about the things all around me, my circumstances, my feelings, my desires....well, I think you get the point.  I will have to stop thinking about me.  And you will have to stop thinking about you.  I recorded it this way in my journal:  

"The constant seeking of things of the earth, the worldly chase of money, position, notoriety, prestige, beauty, power, acceptance . . . must end and be replaced with the search for the godly and the eternal.  There must be a shift of focus."

Though we do not often live like we have been raised with Christ, we have already been.   Our life as believers has already been translated out of this world, and into His world.  We should then have Heaven on our minds, even while we are still living here on earth.  

This is a good place to begin, looking up to the Heavens and seeing ourselves there, not here.  It seems that this one small shift of focus makes it more than possible to change how I think and act here while living day to day.  Would it change the way you think and act?  Maybe we should give it a try!