Hid with Christ in God
As you mature in your discipleship, you grow out of any sense of self separate from God.
In the mountains where we live, wildland firefighters carry a portable emergency fire shelter that they can get under and hide in if they are about to be overrun by fire. I was reflecting on this recently in relation to the assurance in the Bible that we are “hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). It’s a phrase that Christians often use to reassure one another, but it has larger implications for everyone—every child of God. What does it mean?
Christ, as defined in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, is “the divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error” (p. 583). Christ heals, sweeping away mistaken notions of who we are. And Christ isn’t confined to the time period in which Jesus lived, although Jesus fully embodied Christ.
So when the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Colossae about being “hid” with Christ, I feel he was teaching them that when you have made the commitment to study and follow the teachings of Christ Jesus, as you mature in your discipleship, you grow out of any sense of self separate from God, Spirit. You begin to see that your real spiritual identity as Spirit’s own image and likeness (see Genesis 1:26, 27) is safe, sheltered, truly “hid with Christ in God,” even when feeling engulfed by the toughest of circumstances.
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