Where Are You Setting Your Eyes?

There's something powerful about focus. Ask any parent who's watched their young child stand at the edge of a diving board, toes curled over the edge, frozen between courage and fear. Often, what breaks the paralysis isn't a pep talk from behind—it's a parent in the water below, calling out: "Look at me. Just look at me and jump."

Where we fix our eyes matters more than we often realize.

The Danger of Looking Down

Pilots understand this principle at a life-or-death level. Spatial disorientation causes 10% of all plane crashes, and 90% of those are fatal. When fog rolls in and visibility drops, a pilot's instincts can become their worst enemy. What feels like flying straight might actually be a descent into disaster. The solution? Don't trust your feelings. Trust the instruments. Keep your eyes on the horizon indicator, not on your gut.

The same truth applies to our spiritual lives. When circumstances cloud our vision, when emotions pull us in conflicting directions, when temptations whisper their promises, we need something more reliable than our feelings. We need a fixed point—something unchanging to orient our entire existence.

The Foundation: Identity Before Action

In Colossians 3:1-2, we encounter a radical call: "Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things."

Notice the order. The passage doesn't begin with commands about behavior. It starts with identity: "you have been raised with Christ." This isn't a suggestion or a goal—it's a declaration of reality for believers. Before any instruction about how to live comes the foundational truth about who we are.

This sequence matters profoundly. Identity always precedes action. Belief comes before behavior. We don't clean ourselves up so God will save us; God saves us, and then He cleans us up. We don't start with outward change but with inward transformation. We don't begin with rule-keeping but with heart renewal.

If salvation could be earned through memorizing Bible verses, attending church faithfully, or knowing the right prayers, it wouldn't be grace. Grace, by definition, is unearned favor—something we could never deserve but that God extends to us anyway. When we try to add our efforts to grace, we actually subtract grace from the equation.

With Christ, Not Just For Christ

The language matters: we haven't just been raised by Christ or for Christ—we've been raised with Christ. This means union, fellowship, abiding. His victory becomes our victory. Christianity isn't merely about imitating someone who lived long ago; it's about participating with the God who lives within us now.

This is where our hope and courage originate. Regardless of what happens, come what may, we are with Christ. That reality doesn't change based on our performance or our circumstances. It's the fixed point in a disorienting world.

The Navel-Gazing Problem

Here's an uncomfortable truth: everything in our culture is designed to make us think about ourselves. Social media algorithms create "For You" pages that show us exactly what we like. Billboards and commercials target our desires. We're surrounded by messages that whisper: "It's all about you."

We become navel-gazers—people who look down at ourselves constantly. Every conversation becomes about what we can get. Every relationship is evaluated by how it serves our purposes. Even our listening becomes selective, filtering for what matters to us.

But the call to set our minds on things above is a call to lift our eyes from our own navels to God. It means that not only sin but even morally neutral things—sports, entertainment, hobbies—can't become the focus of our attention. Good things in the wrong place become bad things.

The question pierces: Is your mind's attention and your heart's affection directed at Christ? If not, where is it directed? Because it's directed somewhere.

Aiming at Heaven to Hit Earth

C.S. Lewis observed something fascinating: "If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next." The apostles, medieval church builders, and abolitionists all left their mark on earth precisely because their minds were occupied with heaven. "Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get neither."

This life, for the believer, is the worst life we'll ever experience. The one to come is far greater. But for those outside Christ, this life is the best they'll ever know, and what follows is separation from God forever.

The gospel invites us into something better: relationship with God, freedom from sin's tyranny, and eternal life with Him.

The Sin Problem: Kill It or It Will Kill You

Colossians 3 doesn't shy away from specifics. It lists sins that must be "put to death": sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language, lying.

Think of mint in a garden. It looks good, smells good, grows quickly—but it kills everything around it to take over the space. Sin operates the same way. It wants more of us. It takes more and more until the good is gone. We never drift toward holiness; we drift toward sin. Left unchecked, it destroys.

D.A. Carson writes: "People do not drift toward holiness apart from grace-driven effort." Notice both elements: grace and effort. Effort is the vehicle, but grace is the fuel. Without grace, our effort becomes self-righteousness—the sin of the Pharisees. We're not big enough to conquer our sin alone.

The Real Solution

Here's the trap: we try to fight sin with sin. We battle anxiety by attempting to control everything (which is also sin). We combat pride with self-righteousness (more sin). We weed-eat the mint at surface level, and it comes back stronger two weeks later.

The problem isn't surface-level. It's a heart issue. And heart issues require digging to the roots.

The antidote to a crooked, broken heart is the cross of Christ. What we bring to the table is our brokenness; what Christ brings is renewal—continual renewal as we fix our eyes on Jesus over and over again. When our heart changes, our behavior follows. Not the other way around.

Every time we fix our eyes on the cross—the place where things go to die—sin is killed. We bring our mess to God and find grace at the foot of the cross every single time. That grace becomes our motivation to get up and try again the next day.

Grace for Everyone

The passage closes with beautiful inclusivity: "Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all."

Regardless of background, Jesus is for you. It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, or what you've done—the grace of Christ is available. There's level ground at the foot of the cross.

Where Will You Look?

So the question remains: Where are you setting your eyes?

Are you looking down at yourself, your failures, your circumstances? Or are you looking up at Christ, your identity in Him, and the glory that awaits?

The child on the diving board had to make a choice: focus on the fear or focus on the parent in the water below. The pilot has to choose: trust feelings or trust instruments.

Where will you fix your gaze today?