children of the resurrection
At the end of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he lays in hard in order to let the church know how crucial literal resurrection is. It comes down to this: how literally your life is consumed by the literal resurrection of Jesus determines how much of Christ’s life you will experience.
In other words, why lose your life over something that’s really just a metaphysical crutch? Why give yourself away for a small sense of spirituality?
Paul had enough energy and ambition and intelligence to have almost anything he wanted in this life, yet he lived as an unstoppable dead man. He lived on the run, just one step ahead of death at every turn; yet constantly gaining access to arenas that only those who didn’t care if they lived or died could enter.
Paul really believed what Jesus told him; that he would never see death, that he would never taste death. If death really has no sting, then fear has no leverage. If death has no sting, then everything associated with death loses its power. What’s the worst that could happen??
Giving yourself away is not supposed to be a slow tug-of-war process. Paul wrote his life off the very instant that Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Everything from that point on was all about him being obedient to the heavenly vision.
Jesus spoke about the children of the resurrection. They’re dead, they don’t make their own decisions anymore; and their lives are hid with Christ in God. They’re not slowly dying to sin, they’re dead to it. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now lives in their physical bodies, and they live out the resurrection life of Christ. They’re not in the boat talking about walking on the water; they’re not mouthing words that could be taken figuratively just as well as actually - something tangible has taken hold of them.
Do you want a life of slowly and methodically beating yourself over the head for destructive habits and urges that you can never really get out from under, or do you want a life where God proves to the world who he is in you? Do you want spirituality, or do you want resurrection?
Brother, Amen. Amen!
Seriously! time to make way for the -
R E S U R R E C T I O N I S T !
yes aye ~~ generous with the words of life >>
cuz Jesus said unless a seed dies, it abides alone. but if it dies it produces much fruit.
& we are born of an incorruptible seed, the word of God, which lives & abides forever.
& the word of Christ is to dwell in us richly. >> because >>
The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
I love your writings Glen, but some times it’s really hard to understand how you get to what you talk about. It would be great with some practical advice. Something I can do today, to recive or act on the word. I don’t want to just be saying AMEN!!!, and not do anything of it. It has to have an affect on my life. I have to respond to it, but I don’t really know how.
By the way: I want resurrection!
That’s exactly the effect the word is supposed to have on you, and on me. When Peter finished his short message on Pentecost, the entire crowd cried out to God, “What must we do to be saved!?”
So your question isn’t at all an intellectual thing - it’s someone cut to the heart crying out “What must I do to live saved?!” That’s it. There’s nothing self-defensive about that, it’s a pure question.
Let me make today’s post about that.
Do that, I look forward to it!