We’re in the series on "Reaching Your Full Potential for God" and the greatest part of this idea is that the purpose of reaching your full potential is "for God."
We’re not talking about you reaching your full potential just for your own benefit. The greatest reason you should desire to reach your full potential is for God. God has done so much for you by creating you, giving you life, and providing eternal life through Christ that you should desire to reach your full potential to honor Him, to bring Him the recognition of which He is worthy.
The way to reach your full potential for God is nowhere explained more fully than in the third chapter to Paul’s letter to the Colossian Christ followers. Today we’re going to learn "Potential-Building Principles for Every Day." We’re going to get right to the very practical help from God in the every day settings of your life.
What do you do in your day-to-day experience to reach your full potential for God?
1. "Set your heart on what is in heaven." (Col. 3:1-4)
Colossians 3:1 (CEV) You have been raised to life with Christ. Now set your heart on what is in heaven, where Christ rules at God’s right side.
2 Think about what is up there, not about what is here on earth.
3 You died, which means that your life is hidden with Christ, who sits beside God.
4 Christ gives meaning to your life, and when he appears, you will also appear with him in glory.
"The Bible shows that all of us have a choice. It isn’t just a choice between God and the Devil or Heaven and Hell. No, this choice is much more subtle. Each day you and I must choose the kind of treasure to which we will devote our lives. Either we will spend our lives filling our attic and our garage with a lifetime of collectibles or we will spend our lives laying up treasures in Heaven. (Luke12:33-34)" – Mark Tabb, Living With Less
Setting your heart on heaven is not always an easy thing to do. It clearly takes a God-honoring act of faith. It takes self-discipline versus self-absorption. But the great reward is God Himself. The more you set your heart on heaven the more focused you become on God. This is where joy and peace come from. They don’t come from the acquisition and hoarding of material things – they come from knowing God better.
Paul said in verse 4 – "Christ gives meaning to your life." Circle that phrase. Money doesn’t provide the meaning for life. Money is a tool. Pleasure doesn’t provide the meaning for life. The right kind of pleasure is just the icing on the cake. But the cake itself is your walk with God, your friendship with Him.
In 1934, when twenty-eight-year-old John Stam, missionary to China, was being led away to execution by the communists with his wife Betty, someone on the road asked, "Where are you going?" John laid hold on the hope set before him and said, "We are going to heaven."
No matter what happens to the child of God they always have victory because they are going to heaven! So set your heart on what is in heaven. The first every-day potential-building principle is "set your heart on what is in heaven." The second one is this:
2. "Don’t be controlled by your body." (Col. 3:5-9)
5 Don’t be controlled by your body. (Circle that very important phrase which Paul goes on to clarify by giving you some practical examples of how to not be controlled by your body.) Kill every desire for the wrong kind of sex. Don’t be immoral or indecent or have evil thoughts. Don’t be greedy which is the same as worshipping idols.
6 God is angry with people who disobey him by doing these things.
7 And that is exactly what you did, when you lived among people who behaved in this way.
8 But now you must stop doing such things. You must quit being angry, hateful, and evil. You must no longer say insulting or cruel things about others.
9 And stop lying to each other. You have given up your old way of life with its habits.
Paul covers sins that range from your sex life to your speech life. His unifying theme is "just because your body wants to do something doesn’t mean it’s okay to do it."
You have to check with God’s instructions, instructions that have been given to benefit you and those around you. People who are controlled by their bodies don’t reach their full potential for God. So this is a very important potential-building principle for your every day life.
Like Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2:20) and "I die daily." (1 Corin. 15:31) Every day of your life your body will be telling you to stay in bed when you need to get up. It will tell you to have that second piece of chocolate cake. The development of the ability to discipline your self is essential in order to reach your full potential for God.
God’s Word is not instructing you to deprive your body of the rest or nourishment that it needs, but it is charging you to practice bodily self-control.
What do you do when your body craves illicit sex, do you give in to that urge? Many people do. But the only time God says it is okay to engage in sex is if the other person is your marriage partner and you are treating them with love and respect, then and only then may you engage in sexual activity.
Paul makes another challenging statement in verse 5 - "Don’t be greedy which is the same as worshipping idols."
"Most of us think of idolatry as a pagan bowing down to an image carved out of stone or wood, mumbling incantations, and carrying out strange rituals. But Paul says that idolatry is more familiar to us than we realize. All it takes is simple greed." (Word in Life Bible)
Your body craves stuff. Your body is greedy. It begins with the eyes – your body wants the things it sees. Then it caters to your pride, your ego. You want to have more stuff to try and prove your value, to impress others, or to find a false sense of security.
If you want to reach your full potential for God tell your body it doesn’t need all of the stuff it craves. Material stuff, more stuff to make you comfortable. More and better clothes and cars and homes and vacations and toys and hobbies and trinkets and collectibles and food and drink and shoes and furniture and decorations and…on and on.
We have more stuff than any generation and culture in the history of the world. And yet we complain more about the stuff we don’t have than any generation and culture in the history of the world.
Practice telling your body that it doesn’t need all of the stuff it craves.
You get the picture. Your body wants to control you, control you with its anger, as mentioned in verse 6, and in verse 8 the Bible flatly says, "you must quit being angry, hateful, and evil. You must no longer say insulting or cruel things about others." That’s the old you – verse 7 - "And that is exactly what you did, when you lived among people who behaved in this way." The new you in Christ has the power to tell the body to behave. The new you says to the tongue – quit hurting people by the things that you say. Verse 9 - "You have given up your old way of life with its habits."
Augustine, a 4th Century Christian leader, who had been anything but a saint before his conversion to Christ, had been known for his sins with prostitutes and doing all the other things young pagans did. One day after his conversion to Christ he was walking down the street when a prostitute began to walk after him, calling him by name. He paid no attention to her and kept on walking. She called louder, "Augustine, it’s me," she said. And he replied, "But it’s no longer me."
Potential-building principles for every day life:
1. Set your heart on what is in heaven.
2. Don’t be controlled by your body.
3. "Let love be the most important thing in your life." (Col. 3:12-14)
12 God loves you (circle that – you are loved – even if you mistakenly believe no on else loves you get this down for sure – God loves you!) and has chosen you as his own special people. So be gentle, kind, humble, meek, and patient.
13 Put up with each other, and forgive anyone who does you wrong, just as Christ has forgiven you.
14 Love is more important than anything else. It is what ties everything completely together.
"Love is more important than anything else." That’s reminiscent of Paul’s words in chapter 13 of his first letter to the Corinthians where he also says that love is the greatest of the attributes of the Christ follower.
Leonard Sweet tells the following story about love being the most important thing.
It’s from an article called "Being Right or Being in a Relationship."
"Tom Wiles is university chaplain at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. Recently he picked me up at the airport in his red Ford Ranger pickup, and whisked me away to preach at chapel and keynote a leadership conference.
As someome who mourns the trade-in of his Dodge Ram pickup, we immediately bonded, traded truck stories, and laughed at the bumper-sticker truism: ’Nothing is more beautiful than a man and his truck.’
As I climbed into his new Ranger for the ride back to the airport, I noticed two big scrapes by the passenger door. ’What happened here?’ I asked.
’My neighbor’s basketball post fell on the truck and left those dents and white scars,’Tom replied with a downcast voice.’
’You’re kidding! How awful,’ I commiserated. ’This truck is so new I can smell it.’
’What’s even worse is my neighbor doesn’t feel responsible for the damage.’
Rising to the defense of a newfound friend, I said, ’Did you get your insurance company to contact his insurance company? How are you going to get him to pay for it?’
’This has been a real spiritual journey for me,’ Tom replied. ’After a lot of soul-searching and discussions with my wife about hiring an attorney, it came down to this: I can either be in the right, or I can be in a relationship with my neighbor. Since my neighbor will probably be with me longer than this truck, I decided that I’d rather be in a relationship than be right. Besides, trucks are meant to be banged up, so I got mine initiated into the real world a little earlier than I expected.’
Sweet continues, "The wisdom of Tom’s words will haunt me for the rest of my life. How many times have I sacrificed being ’in relationship’ for being ’in the right’?
At the memorial service for June Carter Cash on May 18, 2003, Johnny Cash celebrated his wife as someone who knew only two kinds of people: "Those she knew and loved, and those she didn’t know...and loved."
(Rev. Magazine, Sept/Oct 2003)
Love will help you set your heart on heaven and control your body and it is also what helps you be "gentle, kind, humble, meek and patient." (V.12) God loves you – and that gives you the power to love others.
Love is the most important thing in life. True love – the kind patterned after God’s love – unselfish love – the kind of love that moves you to do the difficult things in life – like forgiving, serving, sacrificing.
4. "Let the peace that comes from Christ control your thoughts."
15 Each one of you is part of the body of Christ, and you were chosen to live together in peace. So let the peace that comes from Christ control your thoughts. And be grateful.
16 Let the message about Christ completely fill your lives, while you use all your wisdom to teach and instruct each other. With thankful hearts, sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.
17 Whatever you say or do should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus, as you give thanks to God the Father because of him.
The first principle deals with your heart – your heart must be set on what is in heaven if you are to build your spiritual potential.
The second principle deals with your body – don’t let your body control you – don’t let your body call the shots about how you live.
The third principle deals with your emotions – love must be the most important thing in your life.
The fourth principle deals with your mind – let the peace that comes from Christ control your thoughts.
In your mind there is an ongoing battle. Satan wants you to be in mental turmoil by focusing your mind on things that rob you of peace. God wants your mind to be at peace. Let the peace that comes from Christ control your thoughts. (V.15)
You set the thermostat of your mind on Christ and his peace and the devil and his henchman come along and reset it on this worry and that temptation and another fear. He makes you think about the ways you feel inadequate, your failures, your past sins, etc.
How do you let the peace that comes from Christ control your thoughts as the Bible directs you in verse 15?
We have a lot of our own plans for obtaining peace of mind. One is to wait until we have figured out and solved all of our problems. That’s where we mistakenly think peace comes from. The difficulty with that is, there is always another problem to solve. You can’t ever have peace that way.
Peace comes from trusting in Christ and his care for you. Some try to obtain peace by escaping via drugs, alcohol, sex, materialism, excessive eating, excessive amusement, etc.
Isaiah 26:3 (NCV) 3You will keep the man in perfect peace whose mind is kept on You, because he trusts in You.
You can’t achieve your God-given potential until your mind is at peace.
Paul says other practical things in Colossians 3, especially on marriage and family life. We’ll cover some of these things in a later series.
