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!
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