A thought for the New Year

“For you died with Christ and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” ( Col 3:3)

The start of a New Year is often a time when we take a look at our lives, where we are, where we are going. Before we knew Christ our lives were all based on ourselves. We had to achieve our own “righteousness”, however we choose to define that, it was all about me. That has now changed. We died with Christ, it is no longer all about us. So if, when asking questions, we focus on ourselves we are going to get the wrong answers. Am I good enough? How do I get through this? How can anyone love me? With these sorts of questions our natural reaction is to look first of all at ourselves, but this is the wrong thing to do. For our life is now hidden with Christ. So we must look first to Christ. We are “good enough” because of Him, or, to put it in more theological language, He is our righteousness. How are we going to get through a situation? Through the strength that Christ gives us. How can anyone love me? God so loved the world (including me) that He sent His one and only Son that we might not perish but have eternal life. Why does it say our life is hidden in Christ? Because when we focus on ourselves the answers to the sorts of questions listed above are usually pretty grim. When instead we focus on Christ the answers will be very different, and may take us in a very different direction than we ever expected. The answer may surprise us with joy.