Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Colossians 3:2 (NIV)

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume there’s a long, thin line threaded across reality. My friend, Steve Pettit, suggests this imaginary line divides what we can see from what we cannot see; the temporary from the eternal; the things above from the things below.

Paul, valedictorian at the school of Christ, says we should set our minds on those things above this line and not on the earthly things below it.

With our minds set on the things above, we live in the truth that there is more to reality the things right in front of us. We live in the truth that people are eternal beings and decisions that seem insignificant, when seen in the fullness of reality, are of eternal significance.

When our focus moves below this line, we start living in the mythology that the things right in front of us are the only things true and real. We live in the mythology that the things of life are of temporary significance, if they have any significance at all, and we live out the lie that people are temporal beings whose lives end when their hearts stop beating.

Truth says: Expand your reality. Realize there is more to reality than just the things you see and that what you feel is not an accurate of Truth. Ask God to help you look into the eyes of Truth.

Eugene Peterson, in The Message, paraphrases Colossians 3:2 this way: “Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ – that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.”