Christ Is Risen, Are You?

Colossians 3:1-2 Message “So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.”

Having just passed through the Easter holiday season and its focus on the resurrection of Jesus, I’m encouraged by the thought that as a Christian I am raised with Christ and seated with Him in Heavenly places. Yet do I act this way? No, not always but I am trying. This doesn’t mean that I am perfect, thankfully God never expected any of us to be perfect, but I do try each and every day to live the way Jesus desires for me to live.

Many of us who claim the title of Christian too often however are caught up in the swirl of activity which surrounds us daily; having the latest technology, rooting for the newest reality star or competing in a job market flooded each year with a younger and more eager workforce. And there is nothing wrong with these things; we just shouldn’t put our focus on them more than on the things of God.

The truly hard thing for me, and I’m sure many others like me, is how to balance all of this with my walk with Jesus. So we have to ask ourselves this, “Am I seeing things from Jesus’s perspective?” If your answer is no, then maybe it is time for that to change. I know I know we don’t like that word, change. But change we must, if we are going to grow, and Jesus definitely wants us to grow up as children of God.

So if you need to change, where do you start? A good place would be to get into the Bible on a daily basis. Will this cause God to like you more? No, but you will begin to see the things that God sees and value the things that He values. I recommend that you spend the next thirty days reading each of the accounts of the parable of the soils (Matthew 13:1-23/Mark 4:1-20/Luke 8:4-15) and watch as you begin to understand the things of God in a much better way.

When Jesus came out of that tomb so many years ago, He was the first of many brothers and sisters (us) and has such good things for us, if we will only believe them they can be ours. Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!