Colossians 3:2

Think about the things that are above, not the things that belong on earth.

It’s not always easy to set and keep our minds on that which we cannot see, yet which we know is real and true.

A great illustration I heard last week was to picture holding a large diamond in your hands. That jewel represents your life and things happening here day to day. It is precious, shiny, calls for our attention, has rough edges…

But what we don’t always realize is that we are able to look through that diamond and see the palms underneath, holding it. When we’re quiet, calm, and slowed, we’re able to take the time to focus, and see through our life to the One behind it all, realizing those palms belong to Jesus. This is how we can see the eternal while looking at (through) the temporal.

We realize that all of life is see-through. No matter the experience, we are able to look through it to Christ, loving us, holding us, in ultimate control, working for our good, for what is best for us even if we don’t understand it when we only stare at that diamond.

It also reminds me of those 3D pictures that got popular twenty-some years ago. A normal, lazy glance at them revealed only a nonsensical mess of what looked kind of like television noise with lots of colors.

But if you could train your eyes by trying to look straight through the picture, as if focusing on what lies behind it, something awesome would happen. A three dimensional picture would “pop out!” I’ll never forget the first time I was able to see one, and couldn’t help to just yell out, “Oh! Whoa! Look at that! So cool!!”

Set your mind on that which transcends the things here on earth, for your real life is hidden with Christ in God in that heavenly realm, which we can see….

if we’re looking.

Colossians 2:8

Watch out that nobody uses philosophy and hollow trickery to take you captive! These are in line with human tradition, and with the “elements of the world”—not the king.  ~NTE

I like N.T. Wright’s simple warning with regard to this verse:

Whatever new idea someone comes up with, this is the acid test: does it have Jesus, the Messiah, the Lord, as its centre and focus? If not, beware….if you’ve already got Jesus the Messiah as your Lord, you don’t need to be ‘completed’ by any other system at all…

Sometimes we as Christians do not live as though we truly believe that Jesus literally embodies the one true God, God in all God’s fullness. When we live into the fullness of Jesus in us, there is nowhere to go but down as far as philosophies and traditions, because they are merely human-devised and appointed.

Sometimes we forget who is in us, and therefore, just how little we need from this world.

Again, Wright asked this thoughtful question:

What are the religious and philosophical attractions in your world that are most likely to draw new Christians away from the ‘fulfillment’ they already have in the king?

Colossians 1:29

That’s what I am working for, struggling with all his energy which is powerfully at work in me.

Paul strenuously worked for the gospel with God’s energy.

How do we operate on God’s energy?

Let’s work from the known to the unknown.

How does the human body use energy?

We measure energy in calories. Calories are the energy, or fuel, we burn while performing activities.

If you’re going to run, say, a mini-marathon, you will want to “carb up” as they say. Why? Because you want plenty of energy (fuel) to burn if you’re going for optimal performance. You want stores of energy, along with reserves. The stored energy your body burns during intense performance is called glycogen. (That’s a cool sounding word, looks good on paper, and even has both a hard “G” and a soft “g”. Love it.) And you want lots of glycogen to run 13.1 miles well. That’s the energy you want to burn for best performance.

What if you don’t have enough stored energy?

Let’s say you starve yourself for the week leading up to the race.

Well, your body will have to feed on itself. It needs energy from somewhere, so it will take it from your muscle tissue. This is what’s called a catabolic state. Your body will also burn some fat reserves which may sound good, but that is poor fuel for performance.

So how do we “carb up” spiritually?

I’m reminded of the account of Jesus praying all night long before He chose the twelve (Luke 6:12-13). He prayed up. That is how we can store divine energy. And that is the fuel we need to burn spiritually, or else we become catabolic Christians, using only our own energy, which is not optimal fuel for the spiritual realm.

You don’t want to burn yourself, you want to burn Spirit, and you must carb up on Spirit. Another way of saying it may be that praying up removes obstacles to the Spirit working.

We’re rarely taught to pray like the warriors of old—for long periods, throughout the entire day, consistently, and persistently as Jesus taught in Luke 11 and 18.

It’s amazing what I’ve seen happen when praying in this manner.

Philippians 4:6

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.

Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

~New Living Translation

This simple advice may seem trite to some.

That is sad.

For this is some of the deepest, most profound truth of the universe.

To share with God, in a conversational manner, every single experience, detail, concern, joy, the minute details of your life and thoughts, all while constantly giving thanks for everything God does everyday—this will change your life and transform it into a sacrament of praise to God.

It transforms you.

It transforms your mind into the mind of Christ.

What is more powerful?

What is more peaceful?

You can train yourself to use the beginning of every worry as a trigger to pray.

You can do this.

As soon as worry starts, go to prayer. Authentic prayer of the heart. Tell God your every concern, what you’re thinking, no matter how dark or ridiculous it may sound to you, and try it out loud. It is helpful to do this. Sometimes we need to hear ourselves talk with God.

Don’t worry about anything. Rather, in every area of life let God know what you want as you make requests, and give thanks as well. ~New Testament For Everyone

For further inspiration, you might check out Present Perfect by Greg Boyd. It covers the single most important practice of the spiritual life in my opinion. I’m currently reading it for about the seventh time.

Philippians 3:8

I calculate everything as a loss, because knowing King Jesus as my Lord is worth far more than everything else put together.

Saint Thomas Aquinas is renowned as one of the great theologians and brilliant philosophers in Western Christianity.

His towering masterwork Summa Theologica is a 3,500 page masterpiece on the main teachings of the Catholic faith, explained in philosophical terms. It is a multi-volume beast.

It’s influence not only on Catholicism but also on Western culture cannot be overestimated.

But he never finished it.

And he didn’t care.

On December 6, 1273, something extraordinary happened. While saying Mass, a routine he had performed hundreds of times before, he had an experience of encounter with the splendor of God, and was completely enraptured by God’s love that caused everything else to be put in a new perspective.

Afterward, he told his secretary that he was unable to continue his work, for compared to the mystical insight he received that morning, all his writing “seemed like straw” to him.

In a matter of seconds, he received more insight directly from God than he had in years of study and thinking.

And he never picked up the pen again.

In comparison to truly knowing Jesus as Lord, the most brilliant writing, thinking, philosophizing on earth can come to be seen as virtually worthless.

Philippians 1:1

From Paul and Timothy, slaves of King Jesus…

I’ve been a slave to many things…

To people

To ways of thinking

To experiences

To certain foods

It sucks.

It’s binding, holding you back from your full potential.

But to be a slave of Christ Jesus…

To be a slave to the One who loved me to the point of giving himself for me.

He gave his entire self for you.

This is Someone worthy of giving yourself to.

One who is a “slave of Christ” is truly free from sin. If he is truly a slave of Christ, he is not a slave in any other realm, since then he would not be a slave of Christ but only half so.

~John Chrysostom

Ephesians 6:18

Pray on every occasion in the Spirit, with every type of prayer and intercession. You’ll need to keep awake and alert for this, with all perseverance and intercession for all God’s holy ones–

It is good to pray all the time for everything.

In fact, it’s more than good. It is how we appropriate the Life of God, or God-Energy,  into the earthly realm here and now.

In war, you want to cut off your enemy’s supply lines. No supply lines means no food, no ammunition, no way to win.

In spiritual warfare, our enemy wants to cut off our supply lines providing energy and power. Therefore, the enemy tries to keep us from praying because that interrupts the direct flow of life and energy from God into us. And those are the spiritual supplies absolutely necessary for fighting spiritual battles.

It’s interesting how the satan seems to be at work even in keeping this verse hidden. I’m not sure I can remember it being mentioned in church or preached on, even though it comes immediately after the very popular section on “Putting on the whole armor of God.”

Perhaps the evil one’s plan includes an attempt to keep us fascinated with the armor of God and what it means (instead of actually putting it on), as well as distracting us from focusing on that pesky little verse 18 about that thing he hates and fears so much—prayer, for prayer connects us intimately with God, providing the Spirit’s energy that is a non-negotiable requirement for living the spiritual life.

Ephesians 5:10

Think through what’s going to be pleasing to the Lord. Work it out.

Much of the Christian ethic is discernment.

I’ve always loved C.S. Lewis’s description of prudence:

Prudence means practical common sense, taking the trouble to think out what you are doing and what is likely to come of it.

Think through what is going to be pleasing to the Lord in any given situation. Put it to the test.

What an amazingly effective little “governor” this can be. I remember driving a box truck long ago that had a “governor” on it which did not allow you to drive faster than 55 mph.

A lot of people passed me.

Thinking through what is going to be pleasing to the Lord can not only keep you from doing something harmful, careless, or stupid, but will also help in discerning what to do among the many good things you could do in a certain day or situation.

Whenever someone I know is going through difficulty, and I have a chance to do them good, I find it always best to pray “Lord, what do they most need right now?” or “What do they need to hear from You through me?” Then I respond in the Spirit more than in my own power.

And, of course, if we can train ourselves to ask God, “What is most pleasing to You?” in times of anger, upset, hurt, and frustration, it will be a game-changer.

God is light, and the better we get to know God, the more that light (which is in us) shines on the right path for His name’s sake, making discernment less and less of a mystery. If you sit down to paint a beautiful picture, you don’t do it in a dark room. You sit under the appropriate lighting.

Perhaps it would be good to simply try to start forming the habit of asking God “What is going to be most pleasing to You?” in every situation, and see what happens.

I should definitely pray this before yelling at my kids…

and before yelling at other people’s kids.

Ephesians 4:22-24

That teaching stressed that you should take off your former lifestyle, the old humanity. That way of life is decaying, as a result of deceitful lusts.

Instead, you must be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and you must put on the new humanity, which is being created the way God intended it, displaying justice and genuine holiness.

I like Warren Wiersbe’s commentary on this passage so much, that I want to share a paragraph of his with you verbatim:

This was Paul’s argument—you no longer belong to the old corruption of sin; you belong to the new creation in Christ. Take off the graveclothes! How do we do this? “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” Conversion is a crisis that leads to a process. Through Christ, once and for all, we have been given a new position in His new creation, but day by day, we must by faith appropriate what He has given us. The Word of God renews the mind as we surrender our all to Him. “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy Word is truth” (John 17:17). As the mind understands the truth of God’s Word, it is gradually transformed by the Spirit, and this renewal leads to a changed life. Physically, you are what you eat, but spiritually, you are what you think. “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7). This is why it is important for us as Christians to spend time daily meditating on the Word, praying, and fellowshipping with Christ.

I just love the practicality here.

We need to appropriate daily what God has given us. And there is a way to do that.

I’ve often thought how we need a fitness center for the mind. We’re taught so little towards this in our modern day American Christianity—at least in my experience of it. This is where Buddhists put us Christians to shame much of the time. They have a path very well laid out for reducing suffering and reaching nirvana. If you go to a Buddhist meditation center, you’ll be taught how to train your mind and truly change how you see the world.

A Christian conversion experience will also give you a radical shift in perspective, but why do we tend to stop there? Slowly, the world’s ways of seeing creep back.

Unless we train. Unless we appropriate. Unless we spend quality time with God, daily.

Listening.

Absorbing.

Soaking.

A sponge isn’t the ocean, but it can be completely drenched with ocean….if soaked in it.