If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting, at the right hand of God.  (2) Set your mind on things above, not on things in the earth.  (3) For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  (4) When Christ who is our life appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory. 

The letter to the Colossians was written by the Apostle Paul. The church there was NOT founded by Paul but Paul had close ties to  the church and its members.

This letter was written by Paul while a prisoner in Rome for the gospel. The church in Colosse was threatened by the Jewish legalizers who preached that faith in Jesus was necessary BUT also necessary was observerance of the Mosaic Law – ceremonial rituals of the Jews, dietary laws, the necessity for circumcision etc.  The particular heresy in Colosse also questioned the divine nature of Christ Jesus, (questioning reconciliation with God and redemption by Christ) and there was also the belief that matter was evil.

Paul addresses these theological questions in this letter but our verses today concern the new status of the faithful as raised with Christ – their spiritual lives are now hidden in Christ.  Paul fights the legalizers as what they would have men do is the invention of man, not God.  The faithful are to seek things that are above; we are strangers in this world  and our treasure is in heaven – and someday we will be made manifest in Christ.  Our spiritual home is in heaven while at present our bodies live in this world.  The moment we are saved we enter, through Christ, into God’s presence.  Christ is all in all and we are complete in Him – we have a new focus, a new reality

My favorite, c.s.Lewis, writes in The Weight of Glory, that “At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door.  We discern the freshness and purity of the morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure.  We cannot mingle with the splendors we see.  But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so.  Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”