Citizens of heaven
Paul's letter to the Colossian church is a passionate letter, written to people he longed to communicate with, from a prison cell he could not leave. He wanted them to stop looking to the culture and worldviews around them, to religious practice and tradition for guidance on how to live. He wanted them to look only to Christ.
A refugee fled from a dangerous and restricted life in a far country. At last having arrived in a safe haven, everything was different. There was safety, hope, justice and freedom. But he did not want to change so he and those who had come with him, still fearful, hunkered down in a little ghetto, protecting their way of life, suspicious of change, admiring their new passports from time to time.
'Don't do that', said Paul. You have died and been raised with Christ. You have been reborn. The old rules and regulations no longer apply. You may do some things in the same way, but your reasons and motives will be totally new. You are living in the same world, but you have a new citizenship. You have died with Christ to the world. Now you live in it to change it.
We don't need to worry about what others think of us. We don't need to do things because others tell us to. We are free from all such demands. Not to please ourselves, of course, but to please our new Master and Lord. We may do some things in the same way, but our motives, agendas and outcomes will be those of our new Kingdom and its King. Our eyes see brighter colours; we dance to sweeter music; we have been raised with Christ.
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