Heavenly Mindedness

Colossians Chapter 3:1-4

1 If ye then be risen in Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on earth.

3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear , then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

Christmas time is a time of joy, knowing Christ is the reason for the season, understanding that Christ is the real reason for us celebrating Christmas. For we are celebrating the fact that Christ came to earth to give us a more fulfilling life and more importantly he absorbed our sins, with his voluntary death on the cross, that gave us an everlasting home to go to after this physical life is over. First of all to qualify for this we have to believe that Christ is the Son of God. First there is the promise of the a more fulfilling life Christ and give then there is the greater promise of phenominal proportions that we have an everlasting eternal home of unimaginable beauty to go. Well because of this we celebrate the birth of CHRIST which is Christmas and celebrate the death of CHRIST which is Easter. Well after the celebrating comes the responsibilty of living a life that coincides with this glorious honor. Which sometimes may be hard because we are use to handling situations based on our knowledge of how the world deals with them.

Here Paul is giving the Colossians and us as well, a direction so we we may not be so frustrated on this Christian journey. First of all he starts at in the first verse saying, "If we be risen with Christ " if we claim to rise with a new life in Christ. then we are to"seek those things which are above" these things that are above are heavenly pleasures, heavenly thinking, Godly wisdom

things like:

A. that overwhelming love that we will feel when we get to heaven,

B. that everlasting peace,

C. safety,

D.comfort,

E.Joy

F.Heavenly justice

These are just a few of the beautiful things of heaven, these things are so overwhelming, they couldn’t help but keep you peace, the bible says in

Isaiah 3:26

that if you keep your mind stayed on him he’ll keep you in perfect peace .

Keep your mind on God and heavenly things and it will give you not just peace but perfect peace .When you are in perfect peace you handle situations with greater patience, you can explore that situation with greater clarity, more understanding, therefore bringing about a better solution, because your deciscion was not based on anxiety, haste , fear or because of loss popularity.

So many of us make bad deciscions because we want to be popular, like these political partites Bush and Gore both know what the best things to do the most moral as well as financial solution to most of America’s problems but they want to stay popular with their supporters so they make the best deciscion possible to cater to special interest groups, I tell you right now when you stick with God he will guide you when you keep your mind on heavenly thinking you have already set in motion the steps that will give you the greater victory everytime, , When you prayed about it studied the bible, participated in discussions with Pastor Blackburn and you participated in christian fellowship, and developed a wholesome christian attitude everytime you make a deciscion based on what you feel God wanted you to do, even if you are not successful by earthly standards you get the greater victory, think about the fact that how by earthly standards somethings through our understanding seem unsuccessful, like a church that may have 15 members, we may say "Oh that Pastor don’t know what he is doing, but you never know what God’s program is over there, those individuals may need a small church because they need such personal attention, one Pastor once told me that, God told them don’t let the church grow to over 70 members, when the church get about a 100 members train one of your associate ministers to take some and pastor over them, so you can still fully shepard over the rest , now who I am I to judge If they believe truly in their heart God led them that way, who are we to say they are wrong, they were willing to sacrifice material gain to do the will of God . I tell you right now that, if they were truly led this way then they already have the victory, and when God tell you to do something he won’t forsake you, he will take care of you . Paul wants us to handle earthly affairs with heavenly understanding. He says "Set your affections on things above not on things of the earth" He says we should set our affections on things above, to have an affection for something is to be fond, to love something , to have a longing for something, to actually to be willing surrender part of yourself over to something that means alot to you.