Some things only grow in the dark. Seeds. Roots. Even strength.
But stay in the dark too long and things start to die. Like a plant left in a closet, it wilts, bending toward whatever faint glow it can find. It looks alive but cannot thrive. There’s a difference between being planted and being buried.
Paul tells us in Colossians 3 that our life is “hidden with Christ,” not buried or trapped, but like a seed in soil, covered so it can grow.
But we often hide in other places. We hide in comforting habits and in anger that feels safer than honesty. We bury ourselves in distraction so we do not have to face conviction. Over time, those hiding places become holes that don’t just stall us, they shrink us.
Paul’s call is simple and sharp: live like someone who has died to that old life, to being at the center of everything. Live like someone covered in Christ, not in sin or distraction. Lift your eyes. Set your mind on things above. Let His truth pull you out of the shadows into the light where His life begins to thrive in you.
Being hidden with Christ isn’t about secrecy, but safety. It’s where God pulls you close to form you, free you, and shape your life to look more like Jesus.
Today you get to choose where you hide. In the sin that shrinks you, or in the Savior who makes you whole.
Read: Colossians 3:1–10; Psalm 32:7; John 15:1–5
Colossians 3:1-10 —
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—
Psalm 32:7 —
You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble;
You surround me with songs of deliverance.
John 15:1-5 —
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
Reflect: Where are you hiding, and what’s one step you can take today to bring that into the light with Christ?
Based on the sermon, “Hidden With Christ” by Pastor James Marano
