Colossae was a small town, and the church there had a problem with add-ons.
Paul had not planted it. He says in Colossians 2:1 that they had never seen his face. He is writing because word had reached him, through Epaphras, about what was being taught there.
And what was being taught was a set of extras. Read the list Paul gives in chapter two: philosophy and vain deceit, the tradition of men, a question about meat and drink, holy days, new moons and sabbath days, voluntary humility, worshipping of angels, and a set of rules he quotes with visible impatience.
Touch not; taste not; handle notColossians 2:21, King James Version
Somebody in that town was selling a fuller version of the faith, with more requirements attached, and it had a market.
So Colossians 3 is written against a background of people being told they were not quite complete yet, and Paul's whole answer is that they already are.
That is the occasion. Now the verses.
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.Colossians 3:1-3, King James Version
Hid is a word about where a thing is kept
Look at the tense first, because everything follows it.
Your life is hid with Christ in God.
Present. Not will be. Not could be if you get your affections in order. Verses one and two are instructions, and verse three is a statement of fact, and the instructions rest on the fact rather than producing it.
That order matters enormously to somebody who has just lost the thing they were.
You are not stored where it can be taken. Colossians 3:3 says is hid in the present tense as a completed arrangement, and it is the Holy Spirit who keeps that from turning into a target a person has to reach.
Now the word hid.
It is not a word about being obscured, or unclear, or hard to make out. It is a word about being put away safely. It is what a person does with something valuable when they are going out: not lost, deliberately stored, somewhere specified.
And the passage specifies. With Christ in God. Two locations, one inside the other. That is not vague. It is an address.
You have an address for the thing you thought had gone, and Colossians 3:3 gives it in two parts. The written word says with Christ in God, and the same Spirit who kept that specific is the reason this is not a comforting abstraction.
Now let me name what actually happened to you, because I do not think it was mainly about money.
You had a sentence. Everybody has one, and it comes out at parties and on forms and in a doctor's waiting room. I am a nurse. I run a shop. I am at the plant. I look after my mother.
And a sentence like that is not vanity. It is how a person locates themselves in a room full of strangers, and it is genuinely useful, and it worked for years.
Then it stopped being true, in an afternoon, in a meeting that took eleven minutes.
And what nobody warns you about is that the loss of the sentence is a separate loss from the loss of the income. The money is a practical problem with practical answers. The sentence is not.
You had a sentence and lost it, and the passage puts your life somewhere the sentence never was. Colossians 3:3 locates it in God rather than in a role, and it is His Spirit who is the reason that is an actual relocation rather than a consolation.
Then verse four, and it is the part that makes the hiding bearable.
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.Colossians 3:4, King James Version
Then shall ye also appear.
So the hiding is not permanent, and it is not the end of the story. There is an appearing scheduled, and the passage links it to His appearing rather than to any event in your calendar.
Which means the current invisibility of your life is a stage rather than a verdict.
You are in a stored season rather than a spent one, and Colossians 3:3 uses a verb about keeping. The written word says hid rather than lost, and it is the Holy Spirit who is the reason a quiet year reads as storage instead of as an ending.
You are in a hidden stretch and not in a finished one, and Colossians 3:4 puts an appearing on the other side of it. The written account says then shall ye also appear, and the same Spirit who kept that clause is the reason nobody has to read the quiet years as the conclusion.
So stop looking for it where it was.
You have been going back to the place the sentence used to live, checking whether anything is left there, and the passage says the storage was moved and gives the new location in plain words.
You are hid, in the present tense, and the verb was never conditional. Colossians 3:3 says is hid as a fact and puts the instructions in the two verses before it, and it is the Holy Spirit who is the reason that reaches a waiting room rather than staying a doctrine.
You have an appearing on the far side of this and it is tied to His and not to yours. The written word says when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, and the same Spirit who linked those two appearings is the reason the hidden stretch has an end that does not depend on your next job.
And I will not lay one gram on you: what happened in that meeting was not a comment on you. Colossians is written to people being told they were incomplete, and Paul's entire answer is that they were not, and he never once suggests the pressure they were under was their own doing. What God does not blame, no restructure gets to, and He has never once required a person to have a title before He would keep their life.
Declare this over yourself
- Sentence I used to introduce myself with, you are past tense and you are not where I am kept. Colossians 3:3 says my life is hid with Christ in God, in the present, and His Spirit holds that address tonight. I am not stored where it can be taken.
- Verdict eleven minutes handed down, get out, in the name of Jesus. You have told me that when the job went out the door I went with it, and the written word puts my life in two named places and neither of them is an occupation, which ends you, and that verse is where His Spirit has parked, and He is not moving. What God stores, no restructure reaches.
- Lord, You are the God who scheduled an appearing on the far side of the hiding, and You are doing that here. Scripture ties it to Your appearing and not to my next position, and Your Spirit keeps the quiet years from being the conclusion. I am saying the old sentence in the past tense, and the true one in the present.
Colossians 3:3
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