"For You Died, and Your Life is Hidden With Christ!”

7/27/2021

Set your mind on things above, not on things on earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:2-3

Died is PAST TENSE.
What does “died” mean today and a billion years later?
Hidden? What does this mean? From who or what?
“WITH Christ IN God” - what are the implications?

Died: final and forever. Jesus’ blood has overcome and my mortality does not un-overcome as I am Hidden IN Him, protected from Our enemy and from my flesh of repeating the past. And because it is a forever thing and not just a shove down the road to jump-start a new life, but a life With Christ and IN God, we are enabled to continue. We can moment-by-moment look into our Daddy’s eyes and be refreshed and cleansed, and enabled to move forward. It’s as if we have been encapsulated by Him so that the toxic environment is no longer what we breathe or who we are, though we may see some of it through the clear shell. It’s a RELATIONSHIP, which is SO amazing, so there is a continual flow of Life and working out the future.

I tied it back to the ambition vs hope thing in my mind. I’m no longer my “own man,” independent, alone, ambitious, but Hidden in His Body... literally PART of Him. I don’t have an agenda on Earth for myself. My agenda is His and whatever I do His Body is doing too. I want to truly truly live that way!

Dead. Now and forever all of me has been absorbed and hidden in Jesus. We no longer exist. God only sees Jesus, his Son when looking at us. Therefore, we are absorbed by and hidden in Jesus and a part of God the Father forever and ever.

I’m loving the picture of being hidden. Dead and buried, hidden, in Jesus. The Enemy can’t even find me there and my enemy's thoughts can’t get to me. I’m wrapped up and covered; one in the Father as his son is.

I think the “died” is directly related to the phrase leading up to it: Set your mind on things above, not on things on (or of) the earth. Those who are Born Again are dead to the old ecosystem and alive to the new. That is true now and a billion years from now. And to the extent that I’m investing “on things above,” I’m building toward the billion-year life, not this vapor earth life. When I see the word “hidden,” I picture Psalm 91:4 “He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” HIS FAITHFULNESS becomes protection from the enemy's darts and lies and from the second death. The implications? All good! :) Simply considering these truths brings much hope and courage. To extend someone else’s quote from the other day: “THIS hope is bulletproof.”

Dead, therefore sin LITERALLY has no power or mastery over me, by Faith, except what I choose to give it. Hidden... from the enemy, yes, perhaps also, from God’s Righteous Judgment?? Covered and Hidden in His Blood. Like was already said, “Father only sees His Son now as He looks on us.”

The old, before Christ me is dead and gone. Who I am now is hidden in Christ forever, but He is not hidden when I let Him live through me.

I like the amplified version of that verse too: “Set your mind and keep focused habitually on the things above [the heavenly things], not on things that are on the earth [which have only temporal value]. For you died [to this world], and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Dead to my flesh and its desires to be liked, to have fun, thought of as “spiritual.” Dead to all things of this earth and caring about what the world cares about. Dead to flesh ambitions, now my Hope is set on God and being Hidden in Him. Hidden in Him means completely protected from my old self monster and from the enemy’s tricks. I can give in to them, but by Faith, they have no power and control over me. Before I had no hope, even the “good” things I did had flesh tainted all over them. Now I’m covered in Jesus’ blood. Nothing can touch me...not the enemy, not sin, not failure, if I remain in Him.