WARNING PREACHY - 10/25/2015

WARNING PREACHY – 10/25/2015

Colossians 3:1-11

“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”  Colossians 3:2

                                                    

Colossians 3:2 seems to me the heart of the matter in many ways: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”  The non-regenerate human (the sinner) is focused on just one thing – Themselves.  I remember when I became a Christian I told someone that I was thinking of becoming a missionary to benefit my fellow man. The response was incredulity and I was told “You need to look out for Number One.”  However, though I used to think that way I did no longer at that time.  As a non-Christian I really was ego-centric but once I committed my life to following Jesus I recognized that I wanted to be christo-centric.  And that meant loving my neighbors as well as my enemies.  It was the most drastic paradigm shift in my life.

Christian morality was something that came slowly to me after I became a follower of Jesus.  In fact, it is something that still struggles through my soul.  The reason for this is that my flesh is still focused on me, how I feel, and how I think things should be (even as a Christian).  Ego-centricism is my default position in this life and it is always difficult to consider myself the servant of Jesus as well as mankind.  Yeah, morality is tough business because it doesn’t say to me, that I deserve this good thing or that good thing, it says words like “John, go sacrificially and love your neighbor” or “John, go love your enemy, those who hate you and those whom you hate”.

So go ahead and read the 11 verses of today’s passage.  Maybe you will discover that I am not the only self-centered person in the neighborhood.

“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:3).

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+3%3A1-11&version=NIV