Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:2-3.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
In your journey back into Me as you go forward in Christ to enter all I have prepared for those who love Me you must understand what I have done for you in Christ or you will not be able to operate from the position to which I have raised you. When He died to pay your judgment, it is as if you died in Him to sin and death, and when I raised Him up with your judgment paid and your sentence satisfied I raised you in Him fully justified by His substitutionary sacrifice on your behalf. And I seated you with Him at My right hand. Your position has changed in Him. You have a new vantage point on what is going on around you in the world.
And since I have raised you up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where you are seated with Christ at My right hand. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in Me. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Colossians 3:1-4.
Your life is hidden with Christ in Me. Does this remind you of the secret place in Psalm 91 where I hold you in perfect protection from all the plagues, wars, dangers, and evils taking place around you in the world? The word translated as “hidden” in the letter to the Colossians is the Greek word “kruptó (κρύπτω), which means hidden in the sense of being concealed and kept secret. It matches up with the “secret place of the Most High” (seter, סֵתֶר) in Psalm 91. Both words—Greek “krypto” and Hebrew “seter”—carry the meaning of being concealed, protected, and sheltered by Me from the evil and peril in the world. Both describe the place of safety in Me where we are intimately joined and you who believe dwell as one in Christ and are guarded from all harm. Above and not beneath, the head and not the tail, you are not deceived by lies for you see above those to the truth.
What I am telling you here is where to set your mind. You set it on the truth and that is above and not beneath. Facts are temporal and subject to change, the truth is eternal and cannot change. The truth is My Word and when the facts in the earth below do not match My Words, it is your job from your position above to command the things below so that the facts line up with My Words. For example, say that symptoms come against you and you are diagnosed as having some disease or disability. This is the time for you to know from My Word that you are healed already by the stripes of Jesus (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24; Matthew 8:16-17), that healing and good health is yours in Christ and you are not trying to get it, you have it already, it is “YES” to you in Christ. You just need to stand up and enforce your healing and good health by faith. Come with confidence to My throne and receive (take (lambano)) mercy (healing mercy, forgiveness mercy, provision mercy—all these things are yours already in Christ, you just need to authorize Me to move them all from your heavenly account to your earthly account.
Be careful not to set you mind below in the dirt where the devil crawls, by changing one letter in the truth he can deceive you into living a lie. He will try to tell you that this time you are not going to “get” your healing. But you need to cast him out by correcting his lie that you are not trying to “get” your healing from Me, the truth is you already “got” your healing from Me about two thousand years ago and the merits of Jesus have not changed.
So set your mind on the truth, which is My Word and Jesus is My Word made flesh, rather than focusing only on what is in the earth, which is limited.
But now I want to draw your attention to how you become far above the dirt of the earth and the worldly with all their lusts and disobedience to My Word. You put off the old man, the one you were before you took Jesus as Lord and became a new creation in Christ by My giving you a new heart and filling it with My Spirit enabling you to walk in newness of life as one again made in My image and according to My likeness.
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. Colossians 3:9.
“Put off” is the Greek word “apekdusamenoi (ἀπεκδυσάμενοι), which means to disarm, strip off, and divest the old self. It is what Christ does with the devil by His death on the cross, He disarms him. Colossians 2:15. By the “old self” (παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον) I am referring to the former way you thought and the habits you developed in your sinful nature, such as lying when it suited your purposes, gossiping, judging, complaining, fearing, worrying, being depressed, speaking contrary to My Word, immoral living, offense, anger, hot temper, and being ungrateful. These practices have often become ingrained as your habitual mode of operating and must be disarmed and stripped off but not to expose you naked but in order that you can clothe yourself in the new self by renewing your mind in My Word so you can set you mind above. And that is explained in the next verse:
And put on the new self, who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him. Colossians 3:10.
This verse uses endusamenoi (ἐνδυσάμενοι), showing a decisive action of “putting on” the new self. The word neos means “new in respect to time,” contrasting with kainos (new in quality), emphasizing that the new self is recently created and continually being renewed (anakainoumenon) in knowledge and likeness to Me. You are well on the road to coming home when you put off the old and take on the new. I am always doing something new, do you not perceive it?
By stripping off your old practices and habits that were idle and sinful, or just time wasters with no fruit produced, you open up to redemption. And it is then I can clothe you in Christ and lead you by My Spirit in you and on you. And you notice the renewal of your mind is key in getting rid of idle thoughts and pursuits that do nothing fruitful and often are downright offensive and put you back and not forward. And renewal is always in the realm of the knowledge of who you are in Christ and who He is in you.
How you are dressed is important. It makes a great difference even in your outward performance. People in formal attire walk, sit, and hold themselves totally different than they would in old casual attire. People in military uniform behave differently than they would in civilian clothes. Police Officers have authority in their uniform but not out of it.
So looking again at Colossians 3:1-4, there I emphasize your identification with Christ’s resurrection, calling for a continual pursuit of heavenly things and a mindset oriented toward Christ. Your life is hidden and secure in Christ, with an eternal weight of future glory promised. Verses 9-10 highlight the decisive rejection of the old sinful nature and the adoption of a new self, continually renewed in My image of God. You see the decisive nature of conversion and the ongoing process of sanctification.
And how does it all conclude? With very good direction you would be very wise to follow, so read it carefully and I will help you put it into practice:
So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Colossians 3:12-17.
I love you and dress you for success now and eternally in Christ, so put on Christ and sing unto Me glorious songs of praise.