Set Your Mind on Things Above

My quadriplegia constantly clamors for my undivided attention: empty leg bag, deal with pain, arrange for help, adjust corset, charge wheelchair, look for access, and grab that handicap parking spot before someone else does. It’s my world. Then again, it is definitively not.

My world, my breath and very being—my identity—is in Christ and Christ alone. I am not my own; I was bought with the price of God’s blood (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Satan hates that. He will do everything he can—use my wheelchair, my notoriety, ministry, whatever—to focus me away from Christ.

It takes the fight and fire of God’s Spirit to not be enticed away by these things. The apostle Peter says to make no provision for the flesh, for these things “wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). Your identity must never be in things that compete for space in your heart. Don’t diminish the price paid for you or minimize God’s adoption of you.

Only in Christ do we find breathlessly fulfilling joy, peace, and meaning. When we live like we died in Christ, our career finds its balance, our pet finds its place, our children benefit unbelievably, and our victories over trials become reasons to make God famous and happily laud Him before others.

Since Christ is the source of peace, joy, strength, and rest, and in Him we live and move and have our very being, we can be secure and feel significant when we see ourselves “in Christ.” Jesus is ecstasy beyond compare. Why would we supplant Him with anything lesser?

Do you want to know who you are? “Your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). It’s like those hand-painted Russian dolls that twist open to reveal—surprise!—another doll inside. Take out that one, open it, and there’s another. This is fun, you discover. Every time you reach in and pull out a new one, you are sure it’ll be the last. But not by a long shot—the joy continues as you relish one delight after another over all that’s hidden inside.

It’s a vivid picture of unfolding and delighting in your identity. Who are you? You are in Jesus and He is in the Father. So, start opening up Christ and—voilà—there you will find yourself. As you reach inside the layers of Jesus, you see more of yourself, transformed by the very discipline of knowing Him better.

Follow the mandate of Colossians 3:2-3, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Every day get actively engaged with the Holy Spirit in knowing Christ better, in discovering “what’s inside.” The more you look, the more you will be enthralled by His beauty, captivated by His love, and overcome by the excellencies of His mercy and grace.

—Joni Eareckson Tada, joniandfriends.org, condensed