Bound to Christ
Contributed by Nancy Buschart

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. —Colossians 3:1-2

What is your heart set on? What issue or problem does your mind mull over? What do you ruminate on in those middle-of-the-night musings? But wait… I’m getting ahead of myself.

The letter to the Colossians is Paul’s response to various heresies brewing within the young church. Paul writes to the believers in Colossae who are his “faithful brothers and sisters in Christ” (1:2) and who are being confused and deceived “by fine-sounding arguments” (2:3).

So, in this letter, Paul rehearses for the church the supremacy of Christ Jesus. Christ is “the image of the invisible God” (1:15), the Creator (1:16), the sustainer of all things (1:17), “the head of the church” (1:18), the first who was resurrected (1:18), “the fullness of Deity in bodily form” (1:19, 2:9), the reconciler and peacemaker (1:20-22). Christ holds “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (2:3). What’s more, Paul reminds the Colossian believers that God has rescued, forgiven, and redeemed them through Christ, His Son, (1:13-14) “through his blood, shed on the cross” (1:20).

But those “fine sounding arguments” have distracted the Colossians from the truth of their new life in Christ. These arguments are “empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense” (NLT) and “empty deceit” (ESV) that take those who engage them back into the captivity from which Christ has liberated them. Their affections and desires are being tugged away toward lesser loves. Their minds are entertaining ideas and practices that may seem relatively harmless to them, but instead enslave them again to the “spiritual powers of this world, rather than Christ” (2:8, NLT). This is serious.

Adele Calhoun writes, “Life makes it evident that what we contemplate shapes us.” Our hearts set on earthly things brings us to self-serving greed and envy. Our minds set on “fine sounding arguments” brings us fear and doubt, makes us argumentative and judgmental, and divides us.

Paul tells his Colossian brothers and sisters to “set your hearts” (your affections and desires) and “set your minds” (your knowing, learning, thinking, and your doing) on Christ. Filter all your hearts’ desires and your minds’ thoughts through the risen and ascended Christ, “who is your life!” (3:4).

Paul says the same to the Philippians.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. —Phil 4:8-9, NLT

Fix your thoughts on WHO is true, honorable, and right, and pure… . Think about WHO is excellent and worthy of praise.

WHO is this describing? Christ Jesus alone.

And may the God of peace be with you.

Consider …

╬ Do you agree with Calhoun’s statement, “Life makes it evident that what we contemplate shapes us”? Remember a time when your heart and mind wandered from Christ. Were you shaped by envy, fear, or discord? What did you do to return to Christ?

╬ Ask the Lord to help you set your heart and your mind on Christ alone and to filter all your life through Him.

╬ Father, in this world there are countless things to fix our hearts’ desires and affections on, just as there are endless issues and philosophies for us to fret about. Forgive us, Lord, for being so easily detoured from the path that is Christ in us, Christ with us, Christ over all. Thank you for graciously, mercifully, helping us begin anew each time we stray from Christ, who is our life! In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.