Christ Who Is Our Life

One of the challenges of life is living it with a total Christ-centered perspective. Colossians 3:3-4 gives us some instruction concerning this when it reads, “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory.”

Verse 3 points to the Christian’s union with Jesus and our death with Him. When Jesus died on the cross He died as my representative, taking my place, and my death. Now, through my union with Him by faith, I have already died. I am now dead to the penalty of sin, I am dead to the power of sin, and I am dead to the things of this world. I am a new creation in Christ. This is past tense showing that this is what has already happened; this is what Jesus accomplished for me on the cross.

In verse 4 Paul looks to the future and speaks about Jesus’ return. Though Jesus is now hidden, out of sight from the eyes of the world, and though our lives are now hidden in Him, there is coming a day when those things will be revealed. There is coming a day when Jesus will return and we will be made like Him and we will glorify Him. That is the future.

But we are living out our lives in the present: somewhere between Jesus dying for us and Jesus coming again. We are stuck between the past and the future in this world of the here and now. But we are to live with both perspectives in mind. Our desires and our focus and our thoughts and our minds are to reflect both the past truths and the future truths. We are to live remembering that Jesus died for us and all that we are in Christ. And we are also to live remembering that Jesus is coming again for us to glorify us and to bring us to be with Him forever. We are to live with both the past and the future in mind. And as we do that it should transform our living and cause us to have a true Christ-centered perspective.

But the key to it all is to live all of our lives remembering that it is Christ who is our life. Jesus does not merely give life; for the Christian Jesus is life. Jesus cannot just be a part of my life that gets pulled out and lived out on Sunday mornings. For the believer Jesus is their life! And that truth must change everything.