Set Your Mind
3 Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. Colossians 3:1-4 (NLT)
Think about the things of heaven or set your mind on.
The word here is phroneō which means to be in the same mind as or to be of one mind.
We see the word phroneō used again in Matthew 16:23.
21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s purposes, but men’s.”
You are not phroneō, you are not in the same mind as God, you are not in oneness with Him!
*Side note: Peter was blessed verses before for being of one mind with God phroneō,
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. Matthew 16:16-17
Simon’s intentions were good. He believed Jesus was the Messiah, but had his opinions and his own vision for how the Messiah would deliver his people.
The Jewish People never expected the Messiah to come from Nazareth, nevertheless as a baby. The majority imagine He would be a great warrior and destroy their oppressors.
Simon Peter thought, this can’t be right. This can’t be it. You haven’t come to suffer or be killed. You have come to end suffering and give us life!
We have all been there.
Surely, you couldn’t have meant this
This is not how I planned this
I thought when you said this, it would look like this
I didn’t envision this
This is why it is essential to set aside YOUR VISION, YOUR IDEAS for how things should happen and set your mind on heaven’s reality-a adopt an eternal perspective.
We do this by setting our mind on things above, not things below and adopting the mind of Christ.
How do we adopt this heavenly mindset?
We become one with the one who is heaven’s reality. We become one by falling in love with Jesus. We must fall in love with the King of Heaven.
This verses SCREAM lovesick.
Your life is hidden in Christ
Christ, who is your life
Think about the start of your deepest love.
Personally with Joshua
Longing to be together
Dreaming of the future together
Our lives become intertwined
We were choosing to become one
(This behavior doesn’t make sense to anybody unless they are love sick too.)
Micheal T preached a sermon months ago now. He said something that stuck with me. He said knowing your identity as sons and daughters is essential, but you must remember the story doesn’t end there. You are the bride. This understanding comes with maturity in him. To understand that yes, you are son and daughter, but it doesn’t end there you will be His bride. And God is looking for a lovesick Bride!
Some of you may be sitting here and thinking that’s foolish! Those butterflies for God and obsession for his presence, that all fades and I am here to tell you: This is wrong.
The same thing was spoken time and time again to me and my marriage, before I got married by CHRISTIANS!!! “That’s the honeymoon stage, it will fade, reality will hit soon, give it a year” and listen don’t get me wrong, we have been through somethings, we have had to go through some things, we have had to mature, but if anything it has only made me more love sick for him.
And the same is true for Christ, we mature, we go through trials, we experience testing, we experience disappointments and failure, we go through some stuff, but let me tell you something...I am more lovesick today, then I ever was. (Mostly because of how He showed up in the hard stuff) I am more hungry for his presence and just to sit at his feet more than I ever have been. I long for time with him, I get excited when I know I am going to be with Him. I look forward to my solitude with him and don’t wanna leave when I have encountered Him and I pray I only get more desperate, I only get hungrier, I only get weirder, I only get more annoying and strange to this world because I want to be desperate, hungry, lovesick for the Bridegroom.
This is biblical!!!
4 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 5 Therefore, remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and I will remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. Rev 2:4-7
We gotta be lovesick! This should never fade away or be lost.
He is looking for a lovesick bride, one that wonders:
“What will our next encounter be like?”
“What will happen when I am with Him?”
“What will He say to me?”
“What will I say to Him?”
Song of Solomon 3:1-4
On my bed by night
I sought him whom my soul loves;
I sought him, but found him not.
I will rise now and go about the city,
in the streets and in the squares;
I will seek him whom my soul loves.
I sought him, but found him not.
The watchmen found me
as they went about in the city.
“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”
Scarcely had I passed them
when I found him whom my soul loves.
I held him, and would not let him go
We must enter into deep, intimate relationship. This intimacy is transformative.
I am a different woman now than I was when I was single
I am now one with Joshua
Longing to be with him
Longing to be in partnership with him
Longing to share life with him
This should happen in our relationship with Christ. As we grow in our lovesickness for him, we die to our life without Him and are enveloped into a life with Christ. (A life hidden in Christ, He becomes your real life) Our thoughts become His thoughts, our ways become his ways.
This is Phroneō :be in the same mind as or to be of one mind.
31 As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” 32 This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. Ephesians 5:31-32
Setting your mind on Christ is not just about thinking about Him, but a
longing to be with him
longing to be near to him
share with him
be in partnership with him
As a result, you begin to adopt his mind. Your ways of thinking become His ways of thinking. Your mind becomes His mind.
*This is a true mark of a disciple of Christ. YOU CHANGE. You are no longer who you use to be. You talk like him, think like him, look like him.
Note Jesus’ Final questions to Simon Peter:
Peter, Do you love me? John 21:15–16
It comes back to loving Jesus deeply.
*Let’s look back at Peter’s life and the end of his story. It is evident that PETER FELL IN LOVE!
God is looking for a lovesick bride, that becomes of one mind with Him.
Outward express is not enough. We can all outwardly do what appears to be like Christ, but what counts is what is occurring inwardly.
4 “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.[a] 5 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7 Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 8 Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Deut. 6:4-8 (Again in Deut 11:18-21)
Phylacteries (fuh·lak·tr·ee)
“Everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels. Matthew 23:5
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Matthew 23:27
Christ was looking for more than a literal expression of this. Not just outwardly “devoted”, but inwardly.
*By default this will overflow into an outward expression, you don’t have to be concerned about that. You don’t do that work, Christ does that work.
Concern yourself with falling in love with Jesus and the rest will overflow into the external!
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers. Psalm 1:2-3
Learn to delight in Jesus. Learn to enjoy His presence. Fall in love with Him and your mind will be set on Him. You will become one with Him.
I can’t teach you how to fall in love with Jesus, but here is a starting place.
Encountering Him: set aside a place and time and expect to encounter him daily.
Excerpt Teach us to Pray by Corey Russel: Learning to linger (pg. 22-23)
