Read through Colossians 3:1-17

Resting place, four-square city

Resting place, heavenly shore

Resting place, land of beauty

Where we’ll rest forever more.

When she was alive, my grandmother loved to hear my dad sing this Southern gospel song called, “Resting Place.” She always said it was her favorite. So, when my grandmother died a few months ago, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s and other ailments, he sang the song at her funeral because he knew that’s what she would have wanted.

While the song is about our eternal resting place in heaven, did you know we have a resting place here on earth?

This powerful passage in Colossians speaks of just that sort of peace we find in Christ. As verse 1 says:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God (NIV).

Knowing that our lives are “hidden with Christ” is a fascinating picture of our eternal security. We no longer have to worry about either our eternal destiny or our fate while in this life. We are hidden with Christ so that Satan can’t get to us. This should give us comfort. Because we belong to God, evil no longer has sway over our lives. The keys of sin and death are now firmly in our savior’s hands. Thus, evil has been stripped of its power over us. As poet John Milton portrays him in “Paradise Lost,” Satan is a defeated foe. He is hobbled and impotent, shining no longer as he once did.

With that knowledge, we also are to strip off our earthly passions and desires, replacing them with that which is godly, detailed in verse 12-14 of this passage.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.

As children of God, we are not only called to display the characteristics of God, but to conduct our lives in an attitude of peace toward those with whom we come in contact. As Christ supplies us with an eternal peace, secure both now and forever in him, so should we exude this sense of unfathomable security that has been extended to us with the rest of the world.

application

Read over Psalm 29 and thank God, both for his mighty power over this earth, and for the calming peace he brings to his people’s hearts and lives.