The life of believers is in heaven
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📚If then you have been raised with Christ 📖, seek those things which are above 📖, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. 2 📚Set your affection 📖 on things above, not on things of the earth 📖.3 📚For you have died 📖 and your life 📖 is hidden 📖 with Christ in God. 4 📚When Christ, who is our life, appears 📖, then you also will appear with him in glory 📖.
3:4 Christ is the life of all believers – that is, they have this new, spiritual life because He is in them (Col 1:27; John 11:25; Rom 8:9-10; 1 John 5:11-12, 20). They are united to Him (John 17:20-23), and His life flows through the whole body of believers.⚜
Putting sinful desires and deeds to death
5 📚Therefore put to death 📖 your members 📖 which are upon the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, bad passion, evil cravings, and covetousness 📖, which is idolatry 📖. 6 📚Because of these things the wrath 📖 of God comes on the children of disobedience 📖.
The way believers formerly lived, the way they should now live
7 📚Once you also spent your life in these things, when you lived in them. 8 📚But now you must also put off 📖 all these: anger, rage, malice, blasphemy, filthy language from your mouth. 9 📚Do not lie 📖 to each other, since you have put off the old man with his deeds 10 📚and have put on 📖 the new man, which is renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator, 11 📚where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all, and in all.
3:11 Gal 3:28. All who believe in Christ have the new nature and all are united with Christ. Christians should not make distinctions where God has made none.⚜
12 📚Therefore, as the chosen of God 📖, holy 📖 and dearly loved 📖, clothe yourselves with tender mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness and patience 📖. 13 📚Bear with one another, and forgive one another, if anyone has a quarrel against another. Just as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 📚And above all these things clothe yourselves 📖 with love 📖, which is the perfect bond.
15 📚And let the peace of God 📖 rule in your hearts, for you were called to this in one body 📖. And be thankful 📖. 16 📚Let the word of Christ dwell 📖 in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing 📖 one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
3:16 Compare Eph 5:18-20. There is a close connection between being filled with God’s Spirit and letting the word (teachings) of Christ dwell richly in the mind and heart.⚜
The proper aim of living
17 📚And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus 📖, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
3:17 Compare 1 Cor 10:31.⚜
The behavior of believers toward husbands, wives, children, servants
18 📚Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
19 📚Husbands, love your wives, and do not be bitter toward them.
20 📚Children, obey your parents in all things, for this pleases the Lord well.
21 📚Fathers, do not provoke your children, so that they will not be discouraged.
22 📚Slaves 📖, in everything obey those who are your masters according to the body, not serving because he is watching, not as pleasers of men, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. 23 📚And whatever you do, do it heartily, as for the Lord, and not for men, 24 📚knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. For you serve the Lord Christ. 25 📚But he who does wrong will be repaid for the wrong he did, and there is no favoritism with God.