If we are truly believers and followers of Christ, we have a new life. We have already died to our former life and we have now been raised with Christ, as Paul tells the Colossians:
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:1-3
What does it mean to set our hearts on the things above?
Paul starts with the sinfulness of our world. He tells the Colossians to look beyond our fleshly desires: sexual immortality, impurity, lust, and greed. We look beyond the desires that the world puts in front of us because we want something better. We should no longer want those things that are temporal because there is something that is much more valuable: that which is eternal.
He then goes on to talk about the fact that, in Christ, we have been made to be one. We are one people. We have been united. No longer are there Jews and Gentiles, nor any of the other classifications that we give ourselves that bring divisions amongst us. Yes, we still live in the world where those classifications exist, but as we live, we live instead as one people. One family, one brotherhood in Christ.
This is, in fact, one of the greatest ways in which we give glory to God. We have diversity that seeks to divide us in our world, but in Christ, we have been made to be one – we worship him as one people. The diversity still exists, but in Christ, there is unity.
This is all because we have died to our former lives and have been raised to a new life in Christ. We have left behind that which we thought was important in our world and instead found what is truly important in Christ. We continue to live in the physical world, but our eternal life in Christ has started now and will continue forever.
Therefore, both our perspective and each of our priorities must change. We should no longer be worried about that which is temporal, but instead we concern ourselves with that which is eternal. How do I spend my time? How do I invest or use the money that I have received? For whom am I living? When we have been resurrected with Christ into this new life, these are the new questions that we should begin to ask ourselves. This is not just a religion that we go to church to participate in for a couple of hours each week. This is a whole new life.