Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

Colossians 3:1-3, NASB

Paul presents an if/then clause. If you have been raised up with Christ, then keep seeking the things that are above. This raises a couple of questions. What does it mean to be raised up with Christ? How do you keep seeking?

When we are born again, we are raised with Christ. The reason we need to be raised is because we have died (vs. 3). But how? And when? There is a one-time death and a daily dying (see yesterday’s blog). When we trust and receive Jesus as our Savior, we die to ourselves and our sin. Paul writes in Romans:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:3-4

The word baptized in Romans 6 is symbolic. When you and I were born again, we were immersed (baptized) into Jesus’s death. The pain Jesus felt on the cross over our sin, we now feel over our sin. The shame Jesus took to the cross, we now experience ourselves. It is our keen awareness of sin that leads us to our need for a Savior. The joy of the new birth is that we don’t say in the tomb of our sin. Just as Jesus went into the tomb and came out on the third day, we go into the dark, cavernous tomb of our sin but are raised to walk in newness of life.

That’s what it means to be raised with Christ. Did you know that’s what happened to you when God saved you? Spend some time today reflecting on the new man or new woman God has made you in Christ. For the next few days we will walk through Colossians 3, and learn what it practically looks like to keep seeking.