Colossians 3:2-4 English Standard Version

2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Picking up where we left off yesterday, since our life is hidden in Christ and we live in the flesh, the only way to bridge the gap between those two lives is faith that speaks the same language in both.

We know from reading John’s gospel that Jesus is the Word. We know that He is Truth. We also know the only way to know the truth is by reading the Word. If we have not read His Word we do not know Him as we ought to know Him.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 8 that “knowledge” puffs up, and if anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. Reading without faith does not communicate the Truth that abides in us. It will not speak to us.

Hearing by faith is required to bridge the gap between our life in the flesh and our life in Christ. The key word in 1 Corinthians 8 is imagines.

Acts 17:29 English Standard Version (ESV) Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

We must not allow our minds to imagine an image of God that is not real. If we create an image in our minds that is a god we can live with, that we can admire and worship then we have done nothing but lie to ourselves. That is the vanities of all vanities.

We must know Him in Truth and Spirit and that is only possible by faith in Christ.

Read the bible like it is a scholastic endeavor and that is all it will be.

Read the Word by faith and He will speak to us.

Faith bridges the gap.

2 Corinthians 4:16 English Standard Version (ESV) So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

There is no easy way to tell others how we have two operating systems. The outer self is one system, the inner self is the other. One deteriorates and the other does not. What is created in the outer does not infect the inner.

We live both in this world and in His Kingdom at the same time. One is flesh and the other spiritual. One is subjected to pain and suffering, the other does not suffer in any way.

Romans 8:6-8 English Standard Version

6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

When we set our mind on things of this world we are operating in a selfish system. When we set our mind on the spirit we are operating in the spiritual system. We live in both but our true life is found in the inner being. It is hidden in Christ. As much as we would love to operate from the inner being, all our decisions, all our actions, all our interaction with others are done via the mindset which is flesh.

Galatians 2:20 English Standard Version (ESV) I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Living by faith is the key to how our hidden life in Christ can operate our life in the flesh. We hear by faith, we see by faith, and when our mind is set to obey Christ by faith, we are allowing Him to live our life for us.

How can we know by faith what the will of our Lord is if we cannot hear and see His will?

He is Truth. How do we know the truth that is Him in Truth?

Romans 10:17 English Standard Version (ESV) So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Faith is the language of both operating systems.