Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!

Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!

Who can forget the seagulls in “Finding Nemo”?! Their annoying and seemingly unending screeching of “MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!” as they fight for what they want around a small buoy serves as a not so gentle reminder to us. How often we ourselves screech MINE! MINE! MINE! We don’t even realize the annoying noise we are making because we are so focused on ourselves. If we take a quick glance at Colossians 3:18-21 it’s as if the brightest lighthouse light illuminates our vast selfishness trying to balance on a tiny little buoy of self-focus in a huge ocean of God’s truth. Wives end up not willingly submitting to their husbands because they are set on their own ideas of what is needed; husbands don’t show love to their wives because of their own agenda for themselves; children don’t obey their parents because they are determined to get what they think they need and Fathers end up frustrating their children to the point of discouragement because they are so focused on themselves that they can’t see how they are too hard on the kids.

This morning, as the Britton family, we visited a few scriptures in an effort to set our focus on God and His ways rather than allow our focus to remain on our own selfish interests. Take a quick tour here of the truths we sighted along our journey to selflessness.

After we read Colossians 3:18-21 and saw how each one of us is called to live a life for others beyond seeking what WE think we need, we took another important stop in Galatians 2. In verse 20 we see that we ourselves no longer live—as Christians our own selfish desires died and now Christ lives in us. The life we now live in this body we have is lived immersed in faith, not pushed along being directed by cues given us by the flesh. We remember that Christ Jesus is the Son of God and He loves us and willingly gave Himself up for us. Moving on to Colossians 3 we see that we were raised up with Christ and so now need to set our sights on things above—where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. We are to set our minds on things above, not on things on the earth because we died and our life is hidden with Christ in God.

As we were reading this section at the beginning of Colossians 3 regarding “set your minds on things above”, I heard “set your MINES on things above.” Your “mines”, your selfishness like the seagulls who fought for what they wanted for themselves, need to no longer be set on things of this earth, but on things of Christ Jesus. But, how do we shift from the screeching selfishness to the selflessness of those in Jesus? Well, in two ways that are shown in verses 8-10 and then in verses 12-17, we see what we shouldn’t do and what we should do.

What we are NOT to do: live in anger, wrath, revenge, filthy language, deceit, lying. All those are born of selfishness and a focus on ourselves rather than out of any effort to seek what would be good for those living around us. We need to have an intolerance for any of the above finding a safe harbor in our lives.

What we ARE to do: remember we are of God, holy, loved and therefore asked by God to show kindness, patience, humility, forgiveness, love, thankfulness and to lovingly endure others when they are failing to live up to how they should behave. Above all we are to love and let God’s peace and wisdom have the most prominent place in our hearts.

I pray that we all set our “Mines” on God’s ways that are above what our limited eyesight can see. Our prayer is for a selfless, thankful outlook that will enable us to honor God in all that we do. I’ll finish here with Colossians 3:17, “And whatever we do in word or deed, we do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”