"Spiritually
Alive"
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M |
an
is increasingly concerned with his natural life and overwhelmingly, this is all
that matters to him. Of course, Jesus Christ came to us that we might have more—a life dedicated to the Spirit and
not just to this flesh.
When
our present, spiritual life is examined in all of its aspects—its joys, its
peace, its growth, its blessings, its triumphs and even its pain and tragedies—it
is hard to imagine that anyone born of the Spirit would ever return to
his life in the flesh. Particularly when every picture painted in that life is one containing pain,
hardship, heartache, trials, tribulations—and no God.
Keeping
many from accepting the truth of the Word of God is the mistaken notion that He
is to be blamed for the miserable state of many lives. What Man usually fails
to recognize is that it is Man's fault that he must live naturally and
suffer. This was not and never will be God's intention. The Lord allows trials and tests in the life of
man that he might recognize his need of a Savior. Without an
"attention-getter," Man would largely never acknowledge that he is
not self-sufficient.
The
goal that is before us as saints of God and even as the creation of God is to live life in the Spirit. All that we did
before salvation, all the time that we wasted, the "fun" that we had,
the depravity that was a regular part of our lives, was not "life." We
are confused about life before
salvation and as "large" as we felt that we lived, in reality, we did
not even approach "living"
until we took on the Holy Ghost. Of course, this means that those still without
the ark of salvation are living a "semblance" of life.
Life
is conferred at birth. If, when we were born naturally we were not really made
"alive," evidently, there is another "birth" available to
us. The only life that counts in this existence is the life
that is lived after the "new birth." You see, the "old (first)
birth" was flawed because the parents
were flawed. The end of that birth was eternal death and damnation, while the
end of the birth conferred by God is life eternal.
Being
crucified, buried and raised to the "new life" of Jesus Christ allows
us to. For too long, we have lived beneath our privileges, mainly through
ignorance of what we really have. The power that we have put on is unrelated to
how the Holy Spirit makes us "feel." The power that we have, we have
through the knowledge of what the
Lord has done and what that should mean to us. If we count
ourselves as no different after salvation than before, we will remain the same
"wimpy," powerless, ineffective "pawns" of the devil that
we were before salvation.
Somewhere
along the way, we have lost appreciation of the fact that we have been saved. It is important that the Lord has saved us from a life in the flesh. It
is important that we are headed for
heaven and not hell. It is important that
we speak in tongues, shout under the influence of the Spirit and communicate
with a God Who speaks to us in a still, small voice. All of these things make us
"spiritually alive."
Redeemed
man is not to live as though an indentured servant, serving the Lord only
because he has to. We are servants of
love, serving the God of our salvation out of gratitude for the
sacrifice that He has made on our behalf. If it does not matter to you that you
are saved, every requirement that the Lord levies and every request that He
makes will be a source of contention in your life.
On
the contrary, if Jesus is the Source of one's sustenance and the
motivation of one's soul, his every encounter with Him will be a source of joy.
How is this possible? This man's joy will be based upon the fact that he is
saved and upon appreciation of the One Who conferred the salvation. This man's
joy will be based upon what has already been done,
therefore, his joy will be boundless and endless, for the Lord has won all
battles and gained all victories.
The
joyless life is the life focused upon the individual. You see, the human,
natural life is bound by the limits of the human being. He can rise no higher
and overcome no more than is within his own power. On the contrary, the life
centered around Jesus has at its core all the power
that created the heavens and the earth. This is a joy literally "rooted
and grounded" in Jesus.
This
world, with all of its misery and heartache, saps the life from men considered
giants in the natural world. With Jesus, the least of us can be productive, happy and content. How? By simply
realizing that the blessing of God will always be greater than its
trials—if we are willing to praise Him and if our interest is in
being "spiritually alive." n