The Wider Life: Chapter 5
By J.R. Miller
"Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your hearts on things above! Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things!" Colossians 3:1-2
Paul reminds us that those who believe on Christ--should live a risen life. He says, "Seek the things that are above, where Christ is." We live on the earth at present. We walk on earth's streets. We live in material houses, built of stones, bricks, or wood. We eat earth's fruits, gathering our food from earth's fields, orchards and gardens. We wear clothes woven of earthly fabrics. We adorn our homes with works of art that human hands make. We engage in the business of earth. We find our happiness in the things of this life.
But there will be a life after this! We call it Heaven. We cannot see it. There is never a rift in the sky, through which we can get even a glimpse of it. We have in the Scriptures hints of its beauty, its happiness, its blessedness. We know it is a world without sorrow, without sin, without death. Paul's teaching is that the Christian, while living on the earth, ought to begin to live this heavenly life.
One day a friend sent me a splendid butterfly, artistically mounted, known as the Lima Moth. This little creature is said to be the most beautiful of North American insects. Its color is light green with variegated spots. In its caterpillar state, it was only a worm. It died and entered its other or higher state, as we would say, and then the worm became a splendid butterfly.
This illustrates the two stages of a Christian's life. Here we are in our earthly state. After this will come the heavenly condition. "The things that are above" belong to this higher, spiritual life. But the Christian is exhorted to seek these higher things--while living in this lower world. We belong to heaven, although we are not yet living in heaven.
We have it in one of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, "May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." The prayer is that we may do God's will not merely when we get to heaven--but now, while we are on the earth, as the holy ones who are in heaven do it. The law of the heavenly life, is to be the law of God's children in this world. We are to seek the things that are above, where Christ is.
Paul presents the same truth in another form, when he says, "Our citizenship is in heaven." We are in this earthly world--but we do not belong here. We are only strangers and pilgrims.
We might travel abroad. We visit cities, looking upon beautiful things, mingling with the people of other lands, charmed by what we see--but we are only tourists. Something tugs at our hearts continually, it is 'home'. So while we still live in this world we are citizens of heaven. Christ is our King. We owe him our allegiance, our obedience. We are to seek the things that are above, where Christ is. We can conceive only dimly of the things that are above. Nothing that is unloving is found there. 'God is love', and only love can live where God is.
The thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians is a little earthly vision of some things that are above. It tells how the inhabitants live together. "LOVE is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." Love is one of the things that are above where Christ is, which we are also to have here.
TRUTH is another. The Scriptures say, "He who utters lies shall perish." This means all kinds of lies; lies people tell with their lips, lies they tell in the work they do. One of the most dishonorable things that can be said of a man--is that he is not truthful. He is a liar. Nobody believes him. Nobody has any confidence in him. In the Book of Revelation, we read of certain people who are shut out of heaven, and among these are all liars. Even in this world a liar is shut out of every place in which honorable men gather. Falsehood is always contemptible. On the other hand, truth makes a man honored.
