Set Your Hearts on Things Above

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Col. 3:1 - 4

Verse one says to set your hearts on things above.  Because we know that "where your heart is, there your treasure will be also."  Verse two says to set your minds on things above.  This is why (v. 16) Paul writes, "Let the WORD of Christ dwell in you richly."  And where can the WORD dwell?  In the mind.  You must think and meditate on what the WORD says.  The WORD must inform your mind and thus yours thoughts and speech and actions.  The WORD must rule your mind.

But the WORD can also dwell in your heart.  Having had the mind informed and ruled by the WORD, the heart then sets its affection, its emotions and its will upon the WORD to love it and cherish it and to let it be its one sure guide and compass.  That is, the WORD then informs our affections.  We read what God loves in the WORD, so we set our affections upon what He loves.

We have to guard against being like Baruch (in Jer. 45).  He was getting bummed because all his Stuff™ was going away and he was losing opportunities to gain it back.  God basically told him through Jeremiah that the ship is going down; now's not the time to repaint your cabin.

We have to have that view on our life with all its Stuff™.  Ultimately, this ship (the ship called this world, this present age) is going down and will be destroyed in fire.  Nothing here in this life lasts.  Therefore set your mind and your hearts on things above.  Look up to Christ!  He is our life (v. 4).

Once we start looking up to Christ, things of this world will start growing strangely dim in the light of His Glory and Grace.  That makes it easier to put to death all the sin and fleshly lusts (vv. 5 - 9) and to put on the new self (v. 10).  Notice how Paul describes the "new self"—"renewed in knowledge."  Knowledge.  That is facts and propositional revelation from God to us via the Bible.  This Christianity is a logical religion and demands that we use our mind.  We cannot leave our minds outside and have a proper worship time inside.  No, we set our minds on things above and we let the WORD of Christ dwell in us richly.  Then our new self is renewed by knowledge!  The knowledge of Christ!  And we grow in His grace and knowledge!  (2 Pet. 3:18).  This is eternal life that we may know Him! (John 17:3).