God has an ingenious solution to our racial problems: make everyone the same race - a new race! There's no checkbox on the US census for my ethnic group,"Redeemed." In Colossians 3, Paul teaches us to see our old habits and choices as our former selves; that man was a different individual, that I can bury and walk away from. Even his group affiliations are dead and gone. Something else that should be buried with him is his impurity.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

The Apostle Paul advised the Colossians to "...put to death whatever is earthly in you...." What does that mean, and how can it happen? Today we'll get a wide-angle view of the first 17 verses of Colossians 3. But we'll also focus-in on this issue of "mortifying our members," as the King James puts it; or, "considering ourselves dead to worldly contacts." Paul gives us some things to "put off," some things to "put on," and some to "put away."

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

Sometimes the best way to understand something is to look at its opposite. We've been orbiting around the tight cluster of imperatives and theological facts in the early verses of Colossians 3. We have died with Christ; but we are raised. We should, in light of that truth, live a higher life, liberated from the slavery we suffered in the kingdom of Satan. Easier said than done, Paul! It's even difficult for us to find models for that level of Christian experience. So what if we look at negative examples - people so worldly-minded they're no heavenly good? Today we'll turn left one book, and open not to Colossians, but to Philippians, chapter 3.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

When we're born again we get a new, holy life - but we're living it in the old, unholy body. There is a solution. It requires us to understand some things that are part of the "big picture," as Jim calls it. This lesson is a further exploration of Colossians 3 - setting our minds on things above. It may seem like graduate-level stuff, but these are things that every Christian should know.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

How can you miss seeing a mountain? Like a painter who forgets that there should be a large geological feature right about "there," we often leave out significant details in the pictures God has shown us. Maybe we're too close to the subject. In our contemplations of Colossians, and what it means to "set our minds on things above," let's try actually seeing things from above - from God's perspective. If we see only with our physical eyes we may miss something. Like a mountain.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

There are some devices that can run on battery power...but they have a lot more "oomph" if you plug them in! What Paul has been telling us in Colossians is that you can attempt to live the Christian life on your own power - trying harder, getting support from a group or a mentor, reading books - the things humans do under the category of "self help." That's the AA-battery level. We have a far greater source of power available to us. Why don't we "plug in" to it? As we've been reading lately from Colossians 3 we've encountered several potentially life-changing ideas. Today Pastor Jim will help us put them together.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

Jesus' will has been read; you inherit it all! Some of us have trouble with the New Testament passages notifying us of our "inheritance." For one thing, we imagine this transfer of resources happening sometime out in the future. And then there's the matter of the preachers who are always talking about "claiming" things from God - we want to stay balanced. Jim will show that these resources are for us, now, and they're not worldly gifts. We're still in Colossians; or we will be, after a slight detour.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

God's secret plan is out in the open, but many of us don't understand it. The secret, or "mystery," is "Christ in you, the hope of glory." That's from Paul's letter to the Colossians, which we're studying. But to say the words, isn't to grasp their meaning - much less to appropriate this truth for ourselves. It brings a supernatural life above where most of us are living. Today Jim opens the sermon Alive in Christ.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

You won't "press on" in God by going back to religion. The legalists are doing something far worse than asking us to adopt some outdated rituals. They're devaluing the sacrifice of Christ. And they want to put us back under the Law, which is to say, they want to put us back under condemnation! To refute them, Paul wrote one of the most powerful passages in the Bible. Jim will help us study it today.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

"See to it that no one takes you captive." Paul wrote to the Colossians to keep them free. In the second chapter of his letter he contrasts the wisdom found in Christ, to the plausible arguments of the philosophers. He sets the fullness and completeness of Jesus, against the 2-dimensional world of the legalists: all symbolism and no substance. Their religion isn't spiritual at all; it deals only with things that can be touched. Paul argues that the dead - that's us - aren't concerned with such things. Here's Pastor Jim with Part 2 of, Death to Life.

Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand.