(Colossians 3)
The walk of life leads us to many directions in its distractions, accomplishing a lot, sometimes, but again, not a lot of great significance. At the end of the day, we ask ourselves, What did I accomplish today? Priorities get misplaced in the order of which we favor most. The things that demand more from us are those which we dearly care about. But what do we make of Paul’s words to the Colossians? If then you have been raised with Christ…How can we have been raised with our Messiah, if we are still in this body of decay? That’s a question we must consider in our spiritual walk. For many of us Christians, there is the thought that our salvation was free and that there is nothing else we have to do. I do pity the idea, for first of all, salvation was not free for our Lord, Who paid it with His life; and it is not free for us, who must deny ourselves, carry our cross and follow Him. We are not exempt from our duty before God to do our part, if we are to be saved.
Read the words from Paul: And if we are [His] children, then we are [His] heirs also; heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ; only we must share His suffering if we are to share His glory (Rom. 8: 17). To be raised with Christ, it is to have died for oneself; raised with Him is He controlling our inner being; it is losing all that has to do with one’s desires; it is, “not I, but Christ lives in me.” The mind, the control center of the body, Paul says to keep focusing on what matters most- on the things above, where YAHSHUA is seated at the right hand of God (Col. 1:1). Dead to the world, we are of no concern to it, neither should it be to us. We, believers in YAHSHUA, are seeds which went through the process of death in order to be alive. The seed that does not die, will never become a tree. In YAHSHUA’S death, he planted in us the seed of life eternal; however, it does not finish there. In dying unto self, the believer gains sanctification, which is a process to attain glorification. Without it one cannot see God. When we go through the new birth, the Holy Spirit seals us with Himself. I call this a ring that unites us with YAHSHUA, confirming our engagement with Him. And that is the most important thing we must pay attention to while in this world. Although, the human heart tends to lean more toward the things of the world than heaven’s. We must make an effort to switch the priority’s direction to heaven. Our citizenship is not of this world; the longing of every Christian should be heaven, because Paul said, Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord YAHSHUA Messiah, Who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself (Phil. 3:20-21)
Light from the Word 