For spiritual sanity and maturity, Paul is not proposing some minor refinements to an already complex eschatological schema. And Paul's point is that it is also the simple Gospel that keeps us connected to Christ. For the manner in which you received Christ is the manner in which you should walk. And God, if one may be permitted to say it, will also have the last laugh. You see, you stay connected with the Head, Jesus Christ the Lord, by beginning off each day the way that first one began, when the Lord established himself as your head.
All golfers know how humbling their sport can be.
Similarly, Christians always must go back to the basics and start each day from the foot of the cross, confessing all their failures and receiving from his hand all their successes. Every day we need that same cleft Rock of God's gracious protection. Every day we need God's gracious protection from his holy wrath and our own sinful proclivities. Paul's exhortation to the Colossians is at the very opposite extreme from moralism. We walk in the undeserved, freeing power of the Gospel, not in the exhilaration of our own moral fortitude.