In Him

1-“If ye then be risen with 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 the 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.” Colossians 3:1-4 KJV

“For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” What an amazing statement. If we have risen with Christ, then we are dead,  and our life is hidden with Christ in God.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” NIV

Romans 6:8-11 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” NIV

I wanted us to share at least two other passages that say just about the same thing. They make it very clear that we have died with Him. In Ephesians 2:5-6 we read that we were also raised with Him. So our passage here in Colossians 3 is just recounting a repeated truth found in the New Testament. 

We died with Him; we were raised with Him; we are now hidden with Christ in God. So our life is His life, and His resurrected life is our life. The next verse tells us what will happen to our life later, but right now let’s just focus on the fact that the death that He died was not only substitutionary but also participatory – we did it with Him in the Spirit. We were in Him, in Spirit, as He was being crucified. The advantages He has as a resurrected human, we also have, as we have taken the journey in Him. The ramifications of these facts are enormous in our understanding.

Our lives now are hidden in Him in God. What an absolutely marvelous placement. When we begin to accept this, then we will start to allow our true identity to be manifested, as that brings Him glory and we find our total completion in His being. This is not an “if I try hard enough,” or if I do this or that,” it is instead a Spirit reality based on the Word that we discover in His love and abundant grace. 

Now we can begin to live in the Spiritual realms found in Ephesians 1:1-14. Now we can begin to receive and live in the trust of Him in us so that it is no longer me but Christ living in me. This takes some real changing of our minds. (That is the meaning of the Greek word translated “repentance.”) We are no longer trying to please a God way up in Heaven in an impossible flesh discipline cycle, but we are in Him and have shared His journey. Now He is in us, and we are infused entirely together in life based on His love, mercy, and grace. He now shares our journey. We are released to be Him in our world (1 John 4:17b), with all the love and power He possesses. 

We must rethink our position, our life, and our future. It is all Him. He has done it and included you and me. 

Lord, “thank you” can never be enough to say or be. It is what our English can say, so Thank you! We receive and begin another kind of journey in You in our Father. Thank you!