Seek what is above

Colossians 3:1-10

So, if you have been raised with the Messiah, seek what is above, where the Messiah is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God. 4 When the Messiah, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.  5 Therefore, put to death what belongs to your worldly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, God’s wrath comes on the disobedient, 7 and you once walked in these things when you were living in them. 8 But now you must also put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.

Recently on an outreach weekend, a young lady asked me if it is sin to go to movies or e.g., read books that are of a worldly nature.  I do realize it's really difficult - we are in the world, but we are not of the world - thus, of course there will be times when we are in a place where not all we see and hear is squeaky clean in the spirit.  Someone once told the following story, I don't remember anymore who the person was or whether the story was real or fictional, but the lesson was good enough to have stuck with me for life.  The person explained that his children one day asked to go to a movie and said to him, there is only a little bit of filthy language in the movie.   He then decided to teach them a lesson, so he baked a cake for them and decorated it beautifully, only he took some of their dog's 'bollies' and mixed it into the cake batter.  Once the cake was finished, he called the children and explained to them what he had done, made tea and offered them some of the wonderfully decorated cake.  Of course none of them would have any of it, no matter how he tried to explain that it really was only a little bit of 'bollie' in the cake, really not a lot, and it would not make any difference to them eating it.  All the bacteria were dead from the temperature the cake was baked at, so they really had nothing to worry about.  When they all refused to eat any of the cake, he asked them:  "So if you do not want to eat the cake in the natural - why are you prepared to eat that cake in the spirit" (by going to look at a movie with questionable values).  He obviously made his point.  

We were raised with the Messiah, and we are being renewed into His Image

Point to ponder: I think this is exactly what Paul is saying in this scripture.  If we are dead to sin, why do we still compromise with some of the sinful behaviour in our own lives? What is there of my old life that is still left in this new life I have in Christ, that really just does not belong in my new life in Him?  Let us spend some time this week and get rid of all that is old to embrace the new in Christ in full.

Is He worthy?