…set your hearts on things above…Set your minds on things above…
COLOSSIANS 3:1-2 (NIVUK)
Twice in the opening two verses of Colossians chapter three Paul tells us to set our focus on being heavenly minded. In the way we use language, the idea of heavenly mindedness can sound unattractive. We often say that a person should ‘be down to earth’ and ‘have their feet on the ground’. It implies that they are in touch, level-headed, and know about reality. Whereas a common phrase is ‘someone is so heavenly minded they’re no earthly use’, which can lead us to think of heavenly minded people as those who are out of touch, who aren’t able to live life as it is. But that’s not what Paul is writing here. Heavenly minded people are those who ‘…clothe [them]selves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another…And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.’ (vv.12-14).
How can we have such heavenly mindedness? Paul provides a negative and a positive application. Negatively, we are to stop putting our minds and hearts on earthly things (v.2), put to death things of our earthly nature (v.5) and rid ourselves of our old self and its practices (vv.8-9). Positively, we are to set our minds on things above (v.2), which happens because of ‘Christ, who is [our] life’ (v.4).
To set your mind or heart on something is to make it your life. Paul is saying, don’t make anything here on earth your life – make Christ your life. To determine what is our life, it’s good to ask ourselves some questions: what circumstances, what objects, what people, what relationships, what conditions, what things in our life, if we were to lose them, would make us feel like we didn’t have a life left? We wouldn’t want to go on? What things do we turn to when things get difficult? What is it that drives us? What do we really rely on? The answer to those questions will help us determine whether we live for earthly things, or whether Christ is our life.
To help us set our mind on Christ, it is important for us to recognise what we have in him: we ‘…have been raised with Christ…seated at the right hand of God…For [we] died, and [our] life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ…appears, then [we] also will appear with him in glory’ (vv.1, 3-4). When we do that, we will begin to realise that we are his beloved children, in whom he is well pleased. What else do we need or really want?
To the degree we can say, ‘Lord, you are my life, let nothing else be my life’, is the degree to which we will be truly heavenly minded, and really will be the most earthly good.
Prayer Loving Father, help us to set our minds and hearts on heavenly things by recognising that in Christ we live, move and have our being. May he breathe meaning into every moment, hope into every hardship, and peace into every storm. Help us to perceive, with ever-deepening clarity, the profound truth that he is our life, for his honour and glory, Amen.