Colossians 3:1
"If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God."
The apostle Paul's view of the Christian life is as a union and identification with the life of Jesus Christ throughout its different stages, teaching the Christian to endeavor to live spiritually the same life that Christ visibly lived before the world. He must humble himself like Christ, his old self must be crucified, he must be buried to the world and then rise again in a new life. We are able to see how the Ascension follows the Resurrection; as it was in the human experience of Christ, so to us, spiritually, we must rise to the things above, following our death to sin, in our new Christian life.
The resurrection must precede the ascension. Christ rose from the dead before he was received up into heaven. We have our resurrection. Without it we vainly strive to aspire to higher things. So long as the soul is dead in trespasses and sins it can have no power to rise to the heights of celestial experience. But this resurrection has taken place in every true Christian. Christianity does not satisfy itself with the death of the old life of sin. Our Christian endeavor springs from our new spiritual resurrection life.
The termination of old habits, evil pleasures, a wicked will, etc., are but the first process. The ending of the old makes way for the new life awakening. Christ could not have risen if he had not died that he might rise again. We die to sin that we may rise into newness of life. The Christian lives with the energy, faculties, expectations, and goals of a new life. This new birth, like natural birth, is the beginning of greater things, onward and upward.
Christian endeavor must soar above the sinful pleasures and habits of the past. It would be denying the work of redemption if the freed soul, now alive in Christ, were to be again taken captive by sin.
Forsaking sin through repentance and the birth of the new life would be in vain if, like a sow returning to its wallowing in the mire, the soul went back again to grovel in the low and evil pursuits of its former life. Of what use are the beautiful wings of the Monarch butterfly if it continues to dine on the same rubbish on which the caterpillar fed?
The Christian endeavor must carry him/her away from the old narrow restraints of legalism, formality and rituals of the former life. It is not to return to "ordinances" (Colossians 2:20-23).
20 "If you have died with Christ to the spiritual forces of the world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its regulations:
21“Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”?
22 "These will all perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings."
23 "Such restrictions indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-prescribed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body; but they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh."
Romans 13:14
"Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh."
Our ambition is toward that above, not merely that which is future. Merely longing for heaven as a future home may well degenerate into rambling sentiment. True Christian endeavor looks upward, rather than forward only. It seeks the heavenly things that may be already had to some degree. Its aims always are spiritually higher and better than the things at present experienced. The Christian should prefer heavenly treasure to earthly riches; the approval of God before the favor of humanity; spiritual truth, purity, and love before those readily available pleasures that are fleetingly temporal.
Successful Christian endeavor requires the support of regular fellowship with Christ. The wings of the soul require sustenance. We lose ourselves in the clouds of our lower atmosphere before we have a glimpse of the stars above. Storms beat us back again to earth, weak, weary and temporarily vanquished. We can only safely aspire upward in Christ. As we die with him and rise from the grave of our old selves with him, so we ascend through continued fellowship with him.
We may hold it true, in the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
"That men may rise on stepping stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."
Experience teaches us that the process is slow and toilsome requiring a hand above to draw us up. As Christ is already in glory, when we seek to be near to Christ we prayerfully approach his high estate. Two important lessons flow from this truth.
1. We cannot remain in fellowship with Christ if we grovel among the things of earth for the worldly minded Christian is the Christian without Christ.
2. Maintaining close fellowship with Christ is the one and only means by which we may ascend to the things which are above.
"If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God." (Colossians 3:1)
Armageddun wrote:
LOVERS OR HATERS
"The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
John 12:25
"A man's greatest care should be for that place where he dwelleth longest; eternity should be his scope."
---Thomas Manton.....
Human nature wants it all. We want to live forever in God's presence, but we're reluctant to sacrifice anything in the meantime. We want heaven on earth as well as heaven in heaven. The fact that this is a spiritual impossibility doesn't phase us. We want it anyway.
Jesus doesn't offer His disciples an impossibility, He speaks in harsh realities. We must make a choice: Invest ourselves in this life---which is passing and subject to decay---or invest in the kingdom of God---which is eternal. There is no "all of the above" in Jesus' gospel presentation. It's either one or the other.
This is hard on us, especially those of us that have been trained to believe only what we see. We see this life; we want to be comfortable in it. We strive to regain Eden, creating our insulated lifestyles and filling them with conveniences and pleasures. It just isn't within our human nature to forsake all that the world offers us for a kingdom we can't even see. But Jesus never calls us to live according to our human nature; He calls us to die. The One who likens Himself to a grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies, only to produce more wheat in the long run, tells His disciples to do the same. He is the prototype; we are the followers. Just as He makes His choice between the Cross and this passing world, so must we. There is no middle ground. We have to pick sides.
Can you honestly say that you hate your life in this world? Or at least that your hope in eternal life pales your here---and---now plans by comparison. If not, Jesus calls you to radically change your perspective. You can not hang on to your visible life and your eternal life at the same time. One must be forsaken. Which will it be?
LOVERS OR HATERS br br "The man who loves hi... (
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