Higher Ground!

"If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:1-3)

In 1898 businessman and leisure-time lyricist Johnson Oatman, Jr. wrote words that were later set to music, one of some 3,000 songs written by him. This one became a favorite of the church of Jesus Christ. Oatman, himself a licensed Methodist Episcopal preacher of the gospel, expressed beautifully in his lyrics his own desire for a higher plane of fellowship with God than he had at the time of this writing. His words illustrate wonderfully for us the exhortation by the Apostle Paul written to the believers in the church of Colossae:

I'm pressing on the upward way,
New heights I'm gaining every day;
Still praying as I onward bound,
"Lord, plant my feet on higher ground"

"Lord, lift me up and let me stand
By faith on heaven's table-land,
A higher plane than I have found:
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground"

The "higher plane" about which Oatman wrote, beloved, the apostle here describes as "things above." The Greek word ano refers specifically to a different plane than the one upon which believers commonly live. The clear contrast is between the kingdom of this earth and the kingdom of heaven!

Furthermore, the command to "keep on seeking" is a translation of the Greek verb zeteo which speaks of pursuing a thing passionately, even of coveting it above all else. Paul's focus cannot possibly be misunderstood. He was talking about each believer living on this plane of existence seeking as the focal point of his thoughts and actions daily a different plane - the kingdom of heaven. And the reason given is simply that as followers of Jesus Christ we have "died" to this world through our identification by faith with Him in His death, burial and resurrection. We have awakened spiritually to a new realm, to a "higher plane," as Oatman so describes it.

And what of those who profess faith in Christ yet who are content to focus only on this sphere? In his letter to the believers in the city of Philippi, this same apostle wrote these somber words:

"For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things" (Philippians 3:18-19)

"Who set their minds on earthly things" - do you see Paul's contrast, beloved? That is precisely what Oatman meant when he through his prayerful lyrics petitioned God to plant his feet on higher ground! Where is your own personal focus today? Are you seeking the interests of the kingdom of heaven above all else? Do your feet itch to walk the shores of higher ground? My hope is that all of us will be able to say with hearts of passion, just as Johnson Oatman, Jr. did - "Lord, plant my feet on higher ground"!

Ron