Colossians 3:3: “For you died [to this world], and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God.” (AMP) This verse reads like this in the MSG version: “Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.”

It is essential that we understand our God-given position because our Saviour’s blood bought and paid for it! Right now, we are dead to ourselves and alive to His Way of thinking and being. This is now our hiding place! Psalm 91 talks extensively about what being ‘hidden’ means. Read it often. Otherwise we can easily get discouraged, disappointed, and feel over-whelmed. Our complete strength lies in the place we choose to live. His will, His way is now our motto. Living hidden in Christ means we’ve put aside our way of living – grabbing this and fighting for that – and we’ve picked up His Way – the way of the Cross. And if I don’t have something, then I don’t need it!

God loves us so much that He wants to hide us in the safest place on this planet…He has hidden us in Christ, simply because He loves us. Our position is one of protection. Peace is now our right – because our peace comes from the inside, not from external circumstances. We live confident in the knowledge that nothing can get by His powerful, gentle, passionate love – unless He lets it through. When He allows stuff through, we face a learning curve, so we prayerfully follow Jesus through His ‘master class in surrender.’ So when something does come at us, we know that with His help we can deal with it..

God will never leave us alone to muddle along… He has chosen to hide us in what Christ did for us. He carved us into the palms of Jesus hands. (Isaiah) Those wicked nails carved through Christ’s flesh and bone, and Jesus has an eternal reminder that we belong to Him now. That’s how strongly He identifies with you and I. To Christ we were always worth the agony He suffered. That’s also our hope-filled message for others, that there is a safe place to live – our sins gone, hidden in what Christ already did! Jesus totally identified with us. He took our old self out of this world, so now we can be a blessing IN this world!  We are IN this world, not OF this world. Now we live our lives like He did – full of sacrifice and love for others.

Jesus faced down sin, as a human being, and He was punished for all of mankind. Now we have the power to step away from it. He has hidden us in the secret place of the most High God because in that place we can remain fixed — not tossed about by circumstances, fear, worry or our own emotions. Instead we are under the shadow of the Almighty … Whose power no foe can withstand. satan and his cohorts have nothing to say in the face of what Jesus did for us. Start speaking that out. Start saying of the Lord‘that He is your refuge, your fortress, your deliverer.’

We need to learn to become spectators. This means we step back and invite Him in, and now we are looking at our troubles through His eyes. Our emotions and thoughts are no longer in charge, and at the same time, while the terrible, worrying or difficult thing is going on, we will always have His thoughts (the bible) to think on …Learn to choose to emotionally, and mentally step away from being a participant, who has to come up with the answers — into being a spectator who is trusting God to be in charge.

The bible says there is peace in the secret place of God. I love that in the Old Testament, the Holy of Holies was quiet. That means that my brain shuts up — and wonder, security and His love all take over instead. I don’t have to pray endlessly because I am confident that He has got me. At any given moment, I can come out of there, because I always have a choice – but why on earth would I want to? Chaos is waiting for me right outside that door!

My best advice today is that we start praying to learn how to be spectators, instead of jumping into the devil’s plot and trying to wrangle with his ways– tormented by his innuendos and spiteful whispers. There are so many daily things that are far too hard for us to solve. Learn to pray first, then ask for the Holy Spirit’s help and step back away from the trouble into His peace. Hand Him every single part of whatever is going on because He knows what to do next. Now leave it all with Him. We need to learn to trust Him because … HE HAS A PLAN for us – He said so, in the book. 

The body of Christ today lacks trust, probably because we have placed more importance on feelings, encounters, and getting what we want. We can grow trust in Him by trusting Him when everything inside us is screaming that this a dumb idea and it will never work!  I guarantee that nobody feels like doing it at the time! That’s why it’s called faith. Learn to be a spectator, stay hidden, safe in His secret place – surrender everything to Him and live for Him. Bye 👋