Colossians 3:1 - "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God"

About a year ago we got a newer car. It's a nice car and it comes with some
nice features, one of which lets us take our music recorded on CD's and
record it to a "memory stick", then insert the memory stick into the car and
play the music. The only problem is that I have not been able to get this to
work. I've worked on trying to get this to work properly for the past year
now and finally by accident found that I was trying to get it to work with
the wrong settings. I even broke down and read the manual and didn't find
this information. It seems that the music had to be recoded in something
called "MP3 format".

Now for all of you "Tech Savvy" folks out there this may have seemed like
the obvious answer to the question, however to me it wasn't. Honestly, I
have fairly good computer skills; however I've never "ripped" music before,
so I had no skills in this area. When I thought that the settings might be
the problem I began doing some searching and found the answer.

You know, it's no different with our relationship to God. There are lots of
folks in this world of ours who struggle to know God or at least to try and
have some kind of a relationship with him. The problem is that they just
can't seem to get it to work. Sometimes folks try for years to figure it out
and some eventually just give up.

I believe sometimes it is that the settings just are wrong. What settings
you might ask? The settings of our heart and mind!

Notice a couple of scriptures that give us some insight. In Colossians 3:1
we read: "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on
things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." And in
Colossians 3:2 it continues, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly
things." It's really hard to focus on God when your focus is really
somewhere else. It's like trying to talk to someone when they are listening
to their MP3 player or IPod.

Jesus himself talks about the ongoing struggle to know and serve God in
Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the
kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in
heaven." Why? It's all about our focus!

Perhaps it would be better to say, It's all about getting the settings
right? It's about living in such a way that we are pleasing to God by
obeying His Words, which is doing his will. So, if you want to know God or
build a relationship with him, then get into His Word and do what He says!
Get our heart set on things above. Perhaps the apostle John says it best in
1 John 2:3 with these words, "We know that we have come to know him if we
keep his commands." How are you doing?

Russ Lawson