In your Face

Colossians 3:1-2

Have you ever had someone get in your face?  Let me number the ways that has happened in all aspects of life; my mentor and friend Ken Ryan, told me to stop saying I believed the Scriptures, when my actions did not measure up to that truth.  My wife told me to stop telling her I loved her, and then treating her harshly.  My daughter, as a teenager, told me I did not trust her because I checked to make sure she was where she said she would be, and my boss telling me to keep my comments about middle management to myself.  I have a history of people getting in my face, and I believe that is what Paul is doing in these two verses.

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on things that are above, not on things of this earth.”  The “if” comes across to me as an in your face thing, but why was this needed, and what was Paul reasons for making the statement?  What is going on at the writing of this letter to the Colossians?  It seems as if there was “doctrinal errors growing out of the mixture of Judaistic teaching with oriental and philosophic speculation.  These heresies tended to obscure the divine glory of Christ.” (The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible Page 1540 Analyses of Books) 

Paul gave a final warning to the church at Corinth and it also seems to be an “in your face” from 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith.  Test yourselves.  Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? – Unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”  The following is taken from a paper by Bob Wilkin, who is the Executive Director of Grace Evangelical Society; “The church at Corinth had been filled with divisions, strife, envy, drunkenness, and immorality (1 Cor. 1:11; 3:1-3; 5:9-6:20; 11:21, 30) when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. And yet he affirmed rather than questioned their salvation in 1 Corinthians as well (cf. 1 Cor. 1:2; 3:1; 6:11,19-20).” 

So what is the test?  For me the test is when I make the choice to sin, does the Holy Spirit speak to my heart and remind me about the sin.  Do I want to make right the wrongs my sin has caused.  I must inject this, the Holy Spirit never attacks your person, never tells you that you are a looser or of little value, that is coming from channel 2, from the enemy of your soul.  The enemy will entice you to sin and in the next moment tell you what a failure you are.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth and He will guide you into all truth.

We also have the ability to set our minds or God would not have told us to do so.  We who are in Christ are to live in the world, but to keep our focus on things above.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice