Week 4 · Colossians 3

Colossians 3 Devotional: Setting Your Mind on Things Above

Colossians 3:1 to 25 · NIV

A six-day devotional journey through what it means to lay down the old life, clothe yourself in Christ, and live from the inside out. Fully, daily, and with love.

This Colossians 3 devotional is an invitation to look up. Not to escape your life, but to see it more clearly. Over six days, we will walk through what Paul means when he calls us to set our minds on things above, and what changes in our hearts, our words, and our everyday lives when we actually do.

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Day One · Monday

Setting Your Mind on Things Above Starts With Who You Already Are

A lot of us spend a good portion of our lives trying to figure out who we are. We look for the answer in what we achieve, in how people see us, in whether life is going the way we planned. But when those things shift, and they always do, we end up back at the same question, unsettled and not sure where to stand.

Paul opens Colossians 3 by going straight to the point. Before he asks anything of us, he tells us something true about us: you have been raised with Christ. Not you will be one day. Not you could be if you get it together. You have been. Your new life in Christ is not something you are still working toward. It is something you are already living from.

That is why Paul can then say: set your minds on things above. He is not asking you to think upward so you can become someone new. He is asking you to think upward because you already are someone new. Who you are comes before what you do. That order matters a lot.

Then Paul adds something that is easy to rush past: your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Hidden. Not lost. Not forgotten. Hidden the way something precious gets kept safe. Your worth, your identity, your future, all of it is secure in Christ. Nothing going on around you today can reach in and take that from you.

So when life starts telling you who you are and whether you measure up, come back to this. You have been raised with Christ. Your life is hidden in God. Start there, and let everything else follow.

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Day Two · Tuesday

Putting Off the Old Life That No Longer Fits

There is a specific kind of discomfort that comes from wearing something that no longer fits. You may have outgrown it slowly, but the moment you try to put it back on, it is obvious. It just does not belong to who you are anymore.

That is the picture behind what Paul is saying here. He is not writing to people who have never tried to do better. He is writing to people who have been raised with Christ, who know the resurrection is real, and yet still sometimes reach back for the old version of themselves. His response is simple and direct: that life no longer fits you. Put it down.

The list he gives is worth being honest about: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed. Then he says something unexpected. Greed, he writes, is idolatry. That one word carries a lot of weight. Because idolatry is not just about statues. It is about what sits at the center of your heart. When you are obsessed with what you do not have, or with the life someone else seems to be living, you have made that thing your god. You are telling it: you are what I need to be okay.

However, Paul’s words “you used to walk in these ways” carry both honesty and grace. He is not pretending those patterns were not real. But the past tense is everything. Used to. That is not who you are anymore. Because you are setting your mind on things above, the old habits no longer get the final say.

Therefore, putting off the old life is not about trying harder. It starts with being honest about what you are still holding onto, and trusting God to do what only he can do in those places.

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Day Three · Wednesday

The Words You Leave Behind When You Walk Out of a Room

Words stick around. Even after a conversation is over, what was said keeps living in the room. In the person who heard it. In you. In the relationship that now has to carry what was spoken.

Paul knows this. In Colossians 3:8 to 10, he gets very specific: anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, and lying. These are not vague ideas. They are the real things that come out of us when we are hurting, scared, or feeling like no one sees us. When that happens, our mouths are usually the first place it shows up.

But here is what is worth paying attention to. Paul does not say get rid of these things just because they hurt people, though they do. He says get rid of them because you have taken off the old self and put on the new one. The new self is being renewed to look more and more like the God who made you. So what you say either lines up with who you are becoming, or it drags you back to who you used to be.

Moreover, Paul says something in verse 11 that changes how we should see everyone around us. In Christ, there is no Greek or Jew, slave or free. Christ is all and in all. Every barrier we use to look down on someone else has been torn down by the cross. So when we slander, dismiss, or speak cruelly about someone, we are not just being unkind. We are contradicting the very gospel we say we believe.

Consequently, setting your mind on things above shows up in your conversations. It shows up in whether the people in your life feel safe, seen, and valued after spending time with you.

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Day Four · Thursday

Getting Dressed in the Character of Christ

Every morning you decide what to wear. Most of the time it happens without much thought. But Paul says there is another kind of getting dressed that matters far more, one that requires an actual, conscious decision every single day.

Clothe yourselves. He does not say try to be more compassionate or work on being kinder. He says put it on. Like a choice you make in the morning. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. These are not just personality traits some people are born with. They are things you can choose to put on today, and again tomorrow, and the day after that.

Importantly, Paul starts with who you are before he tells you what to do. You are God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved. That comes first. You are not putting these things on to earn God’s love. You are putting them on because you already have it. His love is not the reward at the end. It is the starting point.

Paul also does not let forgiveness off the hook. He says forgive as the Lord forgave you. Not as much as feels manageable. Not as much as the other person has earned. As the Lord forgave you. That is a big ask. But it is also the only way real forgiveness is possible in the hard situations, because it is not about our strength. It is about remembering what we have already been given.

And then love goes on top of everything else. Without it, kindness becomes something you do to look good, patience becomes something you grit your teeth through, and humility becomes a performance. But when love is underneath it all, everything else flows naturally. That is the difference between trying to be Christlike and actually being clothed in Christ.

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Day Five · Friday

Letting the Peace of Christ Be the Loudest Voice in the Room

Most of us know what it feels like to have too many voices going at once. You are trying to make a decision and worry is loud, old hurt is loud, and other people’s opinions are even louder. Somewhere in all of that noise, you are trying to hear something true.

Paul speaks directly into that in Colossians 3:15. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. The word “rule” here actually means umpire, the one who makes the final call. Paul is saying that when everything gets loud and you cannot figure out which direction is right, the peace of Christ is what gets to decide. Not your fear. Not your pride. Not whoever is talking the loudest. The peace of Christ.

In addition to this, Paul pairs peace with thankfulness in almost the same breath. And be thankful. That is not an afterthought. Gratitude is actually what makes peace possible. When you are genuinely giving thanks, your attention shifts to what God has already done instead of staying stuck on what you are still waiting for. In that sense, thankfulness is one of the most practical ways to set your mind on things above every day.

Beyond that, Paul makes clear that this peace is not just for you to keep to yourself. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Teach and encourage each other. Sing together. The peace you carry is meant to travel. When you walk into a room with the peace of Christ settled in your heart, it changes the room. That is how the body of Christ is supposed to work, each person carrying what they have received and freely giving it to the people around them.

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Day Six · Saturday

Setting Your Mind on Things Above in the Ordinary Moments

After five days of big, sweeping truth, Paul lands this chapter in the most ordinary place you can think of. Wives and husbands. Children and parents. Work. The breakfast table. The conversation you have been putting off. The email sitting in your inbox.

This is not a letdown. It is actually the whole point.

Setting your mind on things above was never meant to stay inside your quiet time. It was always heading toward your real, everyday life. And Paul’s claim here is a big one: all of it, every relationship, every responsibility, every ordinary moment, can be done in the name of the Lord Jesus. Not just the spiritual parts. Whatever you do.

Specifically, verse 23 holds something easy to miss: work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for people. That means what you do when no one is watching still counts. The effort you put in when no one will thank you for it still counts. The choice to stay faithful when taking the easy way out would cost you nothing in anyone else’s eyes, that still counts. Because God sees it, and God rewards it, and he does not play favorites.

Ultimately, this is what setting your mind on things above looks like from the outside. Not a life that floats above reality, but a life so shaped by Christ that even the smallest moments carry real weight. The way you parent today. The way you handle a hard conversation. The way you quietly, consistently love the people in your home. All of it is worship. All of it matters.

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