New Life

Read Colossians 3:1-17

Here is a question: Are you living up to the quality of life that Jesus Christ died on the cross to give you? Many Christians settle for the fact they are going to heaven when they die. But Jesus said, "I have come that you might have life abundantly." (John 10:10). The problem is our old nature, our flesh, and the sins that we have not dealt with. As the old puritan writer John Owens once said, 'You will either be killing sin, or sin will be killing you."

Paul makes a basic assumption at the beginning of this text. That assumption is that the reader is already a follower of Jesus Christ. Because that is true, a person is hidden in Christ, and therefore raised with Him to live a new kind of life.

So Paul says, "Set your hearts on things above." Then he says, "Set your minds on things above."
Your heart is your affection, and your mind is your attention. So set both on Christ. And he says, "Put to death the old patterns of behavior that were yours before Christ." In fact like a suit of clothes, take off the old dirty and ragged clothing for the new clothing in Christ.

Christ died to give you the kind of life that He lived. Are you living beneath your position?