You Are What You Think
Over the past couple of week’s the news has been riddled with what seems to be more bad news than normal. Now I’d be first to say that more times than not, the news is bad news. But the past couple of weeks have been rough. It can be easy to fall into the trap of hyper focusing on everything that is going on around us. But it’s not only the news that is filling our minds with such negativity, it’s what we’re putting into our heads as well. Whether it’s movies, music, social media, pick your poison, we are exposing our minds and our hearts to anything and everything that is being thrown at us. And here’s the troubling part, all that negativity we’re consuming is taking a toll on our hearts and our minds. I’m not telling you to complete isolate yourselves from the world like an Orthodox monk on a rock. What I am telling you is that we need to be careful with what we set our minds on. We need to remember the words of the Apostle Paul in Colossians 3.
“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 hidden with Christ in God.”
Let’s break down this passage a bit. The first words we see in this passage is “Since, then”. Just like the “Therefore” we’ve talked about before we need to look back to the previous chapter to see what Paul is referencing. In chapter 2, Paul starts off reminding the readers of the freedom they have in Christ (2:6-15). This freedom he is talking about is freedom from the lies of the world and freedom from our own sinful desires (2:16-23).
So now we can read it as “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ (and have put to death the lies of this world and our own sinful hearts), set your minds on things above… Since we now have freedom from our deceitful hearts and the deception of the world, we need to set our hearts on the things above. We need to set our hearts on Christ. But it’s not just our hearts that need recalibrating, it’s our minds as well “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” I believe the minds is something that we unfortunately neglect. The mind is a path way and a window to our hearts. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 6:22, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.” The things we see, the things that we listen to, the things that we scroll through on our Instagram accounts, impact us whether we are aware of it or not. When it comes to streaming, tv or social media, we are being fed what others believe we need to be fed. Every human voice has an agenda to push. That’s exactly what Paul was arguing against in Colossians 2. Which is why in chapter 3 he reminds us of what we need to be filling our minds with “things above” or as the New Living Translation says, “the realities of heaven.”
I love the way the NLT translates this passage, “For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” We have died to this life, our carnal thinking and our worldly minds died when we received Jesus in our hearts. And now our real life, true reality, is hidden with Christ in God. We no longer fall for the lies of this world because we know the true reality of this world, which has been revealed through Christ. We know now that in this world nothing else matters except Christ which is why Paul says in Colossians 3:11 “Christ is all, and is in all.” Or as the NLT translates it, “Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.”
Christ is all that matters. Nothing else in this world matters except for Jesus Christ. Because of this reality, we now live our lives for Christ and set our minds on the things of Christ. When we live in that reality, it keeps us on mission. It allows us to put on our new nature, and be renewed as we learn to know our Creator and become like Him (Colossians 3:10). My encouragement to everyone reading this is to set your mind on Christ. Be careful with what your mind and heart are taking in. Remember, you become what you think, so think on Christ.