I. What does the Apostle mean by the words Set your affections?Our affections are that part of our nature by which we go out in sentiments of interest, complacency or delight. What the Apostle requires of us is to let our minds go out upon these "things above," and rest in quiet contemptation of them. He would have us take them as settled and indubitable facts, clearly revealed to us, and make them the object of our deep, continuous and interested study. He calls us not to pry into things hidden and recondite, but to ponder things manifest and revealed. It is not to a process of research, but to a process of reflection that he urges us.
II. There is, I trust, little need to enlarge upon the importance of cultivating and cherishing such a habit as the Apostle here inculcates. (1) When the affections are habitually set on things above, the surest evidence of regeneration, and of being in a state of grace, is afforded. (2) The setting of the affections on things above is supremely conducive to the right discharge of the duties, and the right endurance of the trials, of the Christian course. (3) As this habit of spiritual affection and thought fits for a useful and happy life on earth, so it alone prepares us for the higher life in heaven. Blessed is that man whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find ready, his eye turned from the fading joys of earth, and resting on the glories of opening heaven.
W. Lindsay Alexander, Sermons,p. 309.
References: Colossians 3:2. T. de Witt Talmage, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vii., p. 129; Church of England Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 28; Homilist,vol. iv., p. 413; Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 306; W. Arthur, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxviii., p. 130; H. W. Beecher, Ibid.,vol. xxvi., p. 355.