Focus: A Key to Happiness
April 18, 2025
Colossians 3:1-4 If you have been raised with the Messiah, keep focusing on the things that are above, where the Messiah is seated at the right hand of God. Keep your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died, and your life has been safely guarded by the Messiah in God. When the Messiah, who is your life, is revealed, then you, too, will be revealed with Him in glory.
When it says, "you have died," it means that those born again are dead to sin because its dominion is broken, its power gradually subdued by the operation of grace, and the perfection of glory shall at length extinguish it. To be dead, then, means that those who have the Holy Spirit, mortifying within them the lusts of the flesh, are able to despise earthly things and to desire those that are heavenly. Our comfort and happiness are found in our life being safe with Him. The streams of this living water flow into the soul through faith and the influences of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ lives in the believer by His Spirit, and the believer lives to Him in all He does.
Walk more closely with God in gospel obedience. Heaven and earth are contrary to each other; both cannot be followed together, and affection for the one will weaken and decrease affection for the other.
Keeping your mind on things above, with Jesus risen in the energy of the Holy Spirit, is the power for holiness. We are called to seek those things above, where Jesus, the Messiah, sits on the right hand of God. An honest, true, and best life is there. Being identified with Him brings heavenly-mindedness as a spiritual outcome of this realization. As the heart is taken up with Him, we will be concerned about representing Him right in this world where He is still rejected, and His claims are refused.
Focus on the Messiah for this happiness, and set your affections upon heaven instead of the earth. We are now free to glorify God as we walk in the newness of life.
Further Study:
Ephesians 2:6
Matthew 6:33
Galatians 2:20
John 3:16
1 John 3:2
John 11:25
1 Cor 15:43