Live Life at a Higher Elevation

     An article in this months Real Simple began, "After reading my work, people often tell me I am fearless and assume I have a lot of confidence. In truth, I'm just a writer. On the page, I am opinionated and more than willing to share my perspectives. I'll even share my life and make myself vulnerable if the work demands it. I am firm in my convictions, and I take risks. But without words, I wouldn't be that way." [Roxane Gay, "Laura, my leader" June 2017 Real Simple]
     I gasped internally as I read it. I had been found out! James mentions that teachers will be held to a higher standard and I've always read that as a veiled threat.... not even really veiled! But he does soften the blow... everyone sins with their words, or else they would be perfect.
     So I keep teaching. I'm under compulsion: if I tried to hold it in, I would explode! I hope my jokey "Am I there Yet?" title communicates that I certainly don't think I've arrived. And I have progressed enough in walking that walk to silence [mostly] that inner accusation: if they really knew you they wouldn't like you. I can live on that teeter-totter balancing what I teach and the way I live.
     But I've been studying Colossians with one of the girls, and I've been challenged to try for a higher level. Challenge isn't the right idea, though. Let's see.... I'm hopeful I can make more progress. Challenge is always present; hope, not so much. But right now I'm hopeful.
     How do you really change? That's the question. And in recommending to someone else that they back off making application from scripture and focus instead on proactively changing their thinking through scripture.... I said to myself... huh... that is true.
      Colossians 3 is all about change. Things to put off; anger, wrath, malice, slander,  abusive speech, lying, evil practices. Things to put on; compassion, kindness, humility gentleness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, love. So how do we focus on making those changes? How do we put them off/on? Making a list and taping it to the refrigerator? Memory verse cards? Verse for the day in our inbox? Those activities might easily fall under the heading of "matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence." [Col 3:23] 
      James made a BIG DEAL about the difference between earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom, and it's shocking to me how many of our methods of spiritual growth turn into earthly wisdom in our application. Is spiritual growth like taking a spelling test? Is understanding scripture like using Cliff Notes to pass a test? Is our motivation wanting to be like someone else, wanting to be happy, wanting to be looked up to in the church? Those all smack of self and earthly wisdom.
     Heavenly wisdom, as Betty pointed her finger, tilted her head and reminded us 💘, is first of all pure. First of all, the place we start, is pure devotion to God, not double-minded but seeking only His face.
     Colossions 3 says the same thing. I was hit by the symmetry of the NIV:
      "Since then you have been raised with Christ
                  set your heart on things above
                         where Christ is seated at the right hand of God
                  set your mind on things above
                         not on earthly things"

      Only NIV uses that phrasing; set your heart and set your mind. 
      We use "to set your heart on something" colloquially. She had her heart set on the red shoes. He had his heart set on reaching the finals. She had her heart set on a PHD. He had his heart set on a black Hummer. It's more than wanting something. It's wanting it more than anything; wanting it to the point that your heart is going to be broken if you don't get it. So setting your heart on things above has to do with your desire for those things.
      Is that where our hearts are set? Or is it really the red shoes. The bigger house. The perfect family. Acceptance, respect, adulation, looking "good", sounding spiritual... Oh my....Those desires, even the "spiritual" ones, reek of self and earthly things.
     Set your mind, also, on things above. So what's the difference? Why the parallel thoughts? I had to look in my little red book... Setting your heart has to do with the pursuit.... if your heart is set on those shoes you're going to find a way to get the money for them. [Good luck with the money for the Hummer!] You're going to do the extra practices to get to the finals; put your life on hold while you keep going through school. You're going to sacrifice everything else for that bigger house.
       Setting your mind [because of the parallel construction, the mind is also to be set on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God] has to do with the inner disposition, according to the red book. Where is your inner life? Verse 3 says your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Again from the red book, three things the idea of being hidden in God suggests:
    1)  "a secret life where the believer's life is nurtured by secret springs"
    2)  "safety, 'with Christ in God' marks a double protection"
    3)   "identity, the believer is identified with the risen Lord"
    It looks like the setting of your mind on things above is allowing God's TRUTH to settle in.
    So how does that effect the putting off/ putting on of the rest of the chapter? Greatly, because Paul begins with truth. Verse 5, put to death whatever belongs to your earthly nature, because that earthly nature IS dead, circumcised from our bodies, buried with Christ. [2:11-12] Verse 12, cloth yourself with all this Godly character because God has made you alive with Christ. [2:13]
      Change begins with believing the truth; letting it permeate every crevice of our mind, transforming the earthly wisdom we have been living by. Change begins with pursuing God with our whole heart; a pure undivided heart that wants only Him.
      When we were in Montana last summer I got a shirt. It has mountains on it and says, "live life at a higher elevation." That had a spiritual meaning to me. It's exactly the truth of Colossians 3. Live life out of that elevated place where you are in Christ with God. That's a hopeful place.