How can I gain an eternal perspective on life?

"We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen" (2 Cor. 4:18). Do we know anything of such an attitude? Have we been looking at the things which are seen, today, or at the things that are unseen? These things are revealed so that we can look at them. "Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth" (Col. 3:2). Associated with Him, risen with Him, set your mind (N. Tn.). The affections and the mind are distinct things; the Spirit assumes that the affections will follow Christ there, but is the mind there? The cross upon earth answers to the heavenly glory. How fatal the influence of man that comes between me and that risen, glorified, Christ. Are our hearts lingering in the scene out of which He has gone? Or are our hearts and minds set upon Him, where He is in the glory? "Our citizenship is in heaven" (Phil. 3:20). Citizenship was everything to a Grecian, it came before the dearest relationship. All that forms the moral life is in heaven now. How feeble is the grasp of these things! What is the practical power of them? Does everything about us, bear witness to them, so that we are only waiting for Him to come, to take us to Himself, in Whom all our joys and our hopes have centred while here? Not one thing has been withheld from us, and He is engaged in service for us in the glory, so that there may be no hindrance to our enjoyment of these things, so that we may be going about this dark world with our faces lit up, or at all events our hearts, with His love. We have found what satisfies us divinely and for ever.

In this scripture the word "affection" scarcely represents the meaning of the original. It refers to the mind and thoughts rather than to the affections. Some examples of its use will make this apparent. When the Lord rebuked Peter, saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan," He added; "for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men" (Mark 8:33); that is, to give two other translations, "thou mindest not," or, "thy mind is not on the things that be of God." So in Philippians 2:5, where we read, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." (See also Phil. 3:15-16, 19, etc.) It is thus evident that the apostle's exhortation refers to our minds and thoughts; and the connection of the passage will explain its force. In Colossians 2:20 we are seen associated with Christ in His death, whereby we have died out "from the rudiments of the world," and have, as a consequence, only the place of dead men in this world. Through death with Christ, if through grace we have entered into it, we are morally outside of man, religious or otherwise, and man's world. But we are also "risen with Christ," and thereby are introduced into a new scene. We belong, through association with Him in resurrection, to the place where "Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." (Col. 3:1.) Consequently all our objects and interests are there; our "life is hid with Christ in God." It is on this basis, on the foundation of what is true of us as associated with Christ in death and in resurrection, that the exhortation is given, "Seek those things which are above," etc.; and again, "Have your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Our minds therefore should be conversant with the things that belong to that new place into which we have already been introduced. If it be asked, What are these things?' the answer is easily given. All the glories of Christ, the various glories of His person and offices, unfolded as they are by His personal and relative names; all the Father's things, which are also the Son's (John 16:14-15), the manifold displays of glory connected with the Father's counsels for the exaltation of His beloved Son; and also all the spiritual blessings with which we are already blessed in heavenly places in Christ. (Eph. 1:3.) All these wondrous things are to fill and occupy the mind of Christians; and hence, as in Philippians 3, to "mind earthly things" is to contradict the truth of our profession, as being a practical denial of having died, and having been raised, with Christ. But if Christ possesses our hearts, our "minds" will always be engaged with Him and His things in the place where He is. E. D.

It is not as a mere truism that the Spirit of God declares, in the end of 2 Corinthians 4, that "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." As believers the eternal things belong to us, and not the things seen and temporal. We have to do with these latter for a short time, and then to leave them for ever. The Spirit of God would set our eyes and hearts by faith upon the eternal things. It is not only that they are eternal, and therefore abiding, and that we are to accept this fact; but the eternal things are to be what our souls live in, and find enjoyment in, now, as revealed 'by the Spirit, and apprehended by faith.

What I still dread is worldliness; it weakens the spring of all. For what is there but Christ? He reveals the Father; He is eternal joy, and present life too. We do not enough feel that what is not seen is revealed to us. See 1 Corinthians 2. How could we look upon it if it were not, or how set our affections on things above? Perhaps as one draws nearer we see clearer, or are more occupied with it, but it seems to me all. People go on around me with their occupations, and I suppose must, and I know ought in one sense; but it seems to me another world which ends in nothing. At any rate, the fashion of it passes away - Christ, and His word, and they who do God's will, never. All that is eternal; only we have to seek His guidance to serve Him, with His wisdom and according to His will.

Paul seeks to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Christ is all, and He is in all saints as life to realize the all that is in Him. I am called, moreover, by glory and virtue. The object I am now aiming at is not now on earth; it is Christ risen. This makes my conversation to be in heaven. Hence he says, "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." It is by looking at Christ above, that we get to be like Him as He was on earth, and walk worthy of Him, for so He walked. We get above the motives which should tie us to earth. We are to be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding to walk worthy of the Lord. No mere rule can give this. The law has no reference to this heavenly life. So we are to discern things that are excellent. Even Abraham did not, in the most excellent part of his life, walk by rule. He looked for a city which hath foundations, and was a stranger and a pilgrim in the land of promise. Reduce me to a mere rule of life, I lose the spring of action.

The believer has both died and risen with Christ. Here he is looked at, not as seated in the heavenlies, as in Ephesians (Eph.2:6), but as still walking on the earth, though Christ is sitting on the right hand of God (v.1). Therefore His place is our true sphere of blessing, and we are to seek those things that are above the level on which we walk, He Himself being our true Object and delight. We cannot ignore our earthly relationships and the necessity of providing for our own bodies and families, but these are not to be the chief occupation of our minds. Our minds are to be set on things above (v.2), willing at any moment to leave all that is of earth, to exchange what is only a temporary tenancy for that which "our own" in permanent possessions.

The fact is we have an altogether new sphere of life. Our interests centre in the right hand of God, and not in our homes or businesses, however important these may be in their place as furnishing us with occasions for serving the will of God. We set our minds upon things above, not by reposing in arm-chairs indulging in dreamy and mystical imaginings as to things that may be in heaven, but rather by setting our minds supremely upon Christ, and seeking in all things the furtherance of Heaven's interests. The British ambassador in Paris sets his mind upon British things by seeking British interests in French circumstances, and not by continually sitting down to try and recall to his memory what British scenery is like.

Paul uses two words for this here. Firstly he says, "seek those things which are above" and then he says, "have your mind on the things that are above", and these are not exactly the same, there is a progression. Seeking means to search out the thoughts of Christ who is above, and putting your mind on those things means to habitually think the thoughts of Christ. When a young Swiss person comes to England he must try to learn the English language. This may cause a problem for a few months, but after two or three months he can get by more or less, he understands English but he still thinks in German. Suddenly, however, he makes the experience that he does not only understand English but he thinks in English. This is the meaning of "setting your mind on", that we have learnt to think Christ's thoughts habitually in relation to the practical Christian walk.

“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above … set your affection (or mind) on things above.” (Col. 3:1-2.)

By these words, God challenges His people to earnest and diligent search after heavenly blessings, and bids them give their minds to these things. A man who seeks after a definite object in life, who makes that one thing his business, is sure [likely] to succeed. Such diligence should characterize the christian in devoting his soul to the things above, where Christ is. “Seek those things,” implies no weak or languid action, but eager and intense purpose. If the mind be set upon the things, the whole life will be formed by the things on which the mind is set.

Then you see how strong St. Paul's personal realization of it was; he says, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." How much he must have had the glory present to his soul, to prefer it to "present things!" Now, he had suffered much; but it only brought the glory the brighter before him, and shows how the glory of the cross filled his soul.

The words "this present time" are striking. His mind is full of the future — absorbed with tomorrow — like the boy at school looking for a holiday, who can think of nothing else. The glory is so present, that he calls it but momentary — "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment." For if you talk to one whose mind realizes eternity, about this present evil world, eternity is too big to allow of room for any thing else. We never realize eternity, till we fill it with the Father's love and Christ's glory. If we think of it otherwise, we only look into a mere vacuum. We are confounded on the one hand, and filled with glory on the other. Finding ourselves in the glory of God, we hardly know how to grasp it — "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." It is a blessed thing that it is ours, so that we can get near it in that kind of way. "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us;" it is not to become proud with the "glory which shall be revealed in us;" it is not a change of time, but the glory is present to his mind, and he realizes the glory. Then he opens it out doctrinally: "For I reckon" — not 'we teach' — "that the sufferings of this present time," etc. — the present sufferings had lost their hindering power, because he saw the power of God in them and endured afflictions according to the power of God. He does not say it is received, but "revealed in us." It is wonderful how the Holy Ghost uses that word "us." It is the common course of all the promises of God, "to the glory of God by us." "That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length," etc. The great thing is to get the heart into conscious association with all this fair scene. And if we have our hearts always occupied with Christ and glory, there will be such a sense of it that we shall be always there. So that if I look at the stars in the heavens — though I admire them and gaze on them with wonder and delight — they do but remind me at once that I am one with Him who created them.