Set Your Mind on Things Above

Set Your Mind on Things Above by Steve Montag

“If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

This last verse says you are dead; you must be dead in order to be raised. We need to get this today! We need to understand verse 3. When you read this statement you should ask yourself: What is my life? What does it consist of?

Let’s look at what the Lord says our life does not consist of, in Luke 12:15. Jesus said, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” It’s okay to have nice things, we believe God wants His people to prosper and do well in life but we need to understand that our life does not consist of those things. In verse 22 Jesus tells his disciples:

“Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith? Do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.”

Why do we need to seek Him? Because we are dead and our lives are hidden in Christ. The things that surround us do not define the essence of who we are but are put here for our survival and comfort. They do not define who we are to God. What really is our life? The essence of who you are is your personality and spirit God has put in you, also, the plans and purposes God has designed for you to accomplish. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand for us to do. Every time and opportunity presents itself for us to do something that was already planned for us. It was already in God’s Day-Timer, before he created the planet. All of our days have been ordained for us. To truly know what either of those things are (who we are and what our purpose is in the kingdom and in this life), we need to find Him. That’s where all of that information is hidden!

When you come to the Lord and ask Jesus to save you, the scripture says we die with Christ on the cross. We’re dead and dead people don’t have rights or get a vote. You are dead and your life is hidden with Christ. God wants to reveal to us who we really are. We think we know who we are but we have allowed ourselves to be defined by what we do and by other people, people who spoke a lot of garbage into our life. That’s why many of us come into the kingdom of God damaged. That’s why we come into the kingdom with so much low self-esteem. We start believing what people say we are but God wants to heal us from those lies. Some of us are afraid to be who we really are because we think we aren’t loveable. But God loves us and he created us that way. If we really want to know who we are, we need to find Him. We need Him to be revealed to us; His word is true and He’s got good things to say about you. People will say we’re no good, that we’re losers but God says we’re more than conquerors and we are made in God’s image.

As the Body of Christ we need to find out who we are. We may not like the body we’re in but it’s the body we have. There might be things about our body that we can’t help because God has created it that way but in other ways we are self-made. We’re a Body and in order for the Body of Christ to be healthy, each part of the Body must be healthy. And if we are walking around identifying ourselves by lies that we’ve been fed all our lives then we aren’t healthy parts of the Body and that means the Body is not healthy.

God wants His Body to be healthy because He’s going to do some extraordinary things through His body very soon!

God put us together in the womb and our body parts didn’t get to choose which part of the body they wanted to be, isn’t that right? You don’t get to choose what part of the Body you get to be, God let’s you know which part you are.

In 1 Corinthians 12:15 it says, “If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,’ is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,’ is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.”

He knows where we fit. Thank God our body parts, in the natural, don’t have a mind of their own. Imagine if your ear decided one day that it wanted to be a foot. Imagine trying to walk on your ear: you just can’t do it. It wasn’t designed to do that but we do that in the Body of Christ. We say I want her job, I want to do what he is doing, that’s great but he’s a hand and you’re not. Hands are useful but if you have more than two you’re a freak. God only gives us two hands and two feet. You might part of the skeletal structure? How’s that for not being in the limelight? What if you’re a rib or a shoulder bone? That means the Body would sag because you don’t want to do your part. It’s not the pastors’ job to tell you which part you are. It’s their job to equip you and encourage you. It’s your job to set your mind on things above not on things of the earth. Find out who He is and He’ll tell you who you are and where you fit.

It’s time for us to seek Him with all our heart, to press towards where God is so we can find him and say, “Lord show me who you are, reveal Yourself to me and tell me what I’m supposed to be doing in the Body.” We need to lay hold of God and get a hold of the purpose for our lives. God has called us with a holy calling. Not according to our works but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us through Christ Jesus before the world began. It’s time for us to lay hold of God and refuse to let go until he blesses us and tells us who we are supposed to be; until he tells us who we are!

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