Resurrection Living || Life

My family loves games - any type of game. We play card games, dice games, board games, video games, puzzles, word searches, minute-to-win-it, charades….you name it and we’ll play it.

But there is one game that often got nixed growing up - Life.

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Life - the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.

The natural world definition of life says that its all these things that “precede death.” But we learned early on, that Jesus’ death gave way to life.

And this life we were given out of love, is achieved by dying to sin and accepting the Life God gave through His son.

Complicated. Backwards. I know.

But the definition of life isn’t all bad...let’s change it to a Biblical perspective:

Life - the condition that distinguishes us from other God-made and human-made things, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change succeeding our death to sin.

So how does life pave a way to Resurrection Living?

Growth ||

Last week we talked about what Lysa Terkeurst calls “living loved.” When we live out of the abundance of God’s love, in lieu of the scraps of others’ love, we find that we grow in relationship with Him.

It looks like this: we choose to live in Truth, meaning we choose to believe that the Word of God (the Bible) is Fact. When we follow that path, our faith starts to align with that Fact. And when our faith starts following the Truth (Fact), our feelings follow.

In my life, I go through seasons where I let my quiet time slip. I push God aside or I rush through a chapter without thinking much about what I’m reading - heck, I’m probably just skimming the pages. I let the Truth derail in my life. What I find is within a few days - sometimes a few hours - my faith shortly follows. And then the frantic jumps in - and my feelings are all over the map. When I’m there, I start searching for scraps from others. I’m waiting for my co-workers to sympathize. I’m looking for my parents to send some sweet sentiment of a text.

But in the seasons I’m diligent in my devotions, I’m diligent in my prayers (communication with God). And when I’m communicating with Him, I start growing in the Truth. And as my knowledge of the Truth increase, as does my faith in the Truth. And soon I find, even in the storms, my feelings (though they may change at times) are aligned with my faith in the Truth.

Reproduction ||

Don’t worry, this isn’t a health class lesson….geez, this is a Christian blog.

The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life.

--Isaiah 53:10

The Resurrection brought life….well life, life, and more life. The second life of Christ brought us all life. But the thing is, it does stop there.

See Jesus commands us to bring that Life to others (read more here).

Jesus, as we talked about, was 100% human. He 100% felt the pain of His Death (read the blog here). But He did it so He could see life come from it. So He could bring life to sinners.

I love my family. I laugh harder with them than with anyone else. I love (most of the time) harder on them than with anyone else. I get more excited to be with them than with anyone else. But not everyone in my family has Life.

The conversations are hard and uncomfortable. But I can’t imagine life here on earth without them...yet alone spending eternity without them.

My Resurrection Living should yield Life in others.

Continual Change ||

Yes, I know I skipped an activity….but it’s the old sermon technique: 3-points, a joke, and a poem (thanks, Isaiah, for covering the poem for me).

Resurrection Living bears change in myself and in others.

Growth is change. As a plant grows, you water it, nurture it, and prune it. God does that in us too.

As we grow in Him, He feeds us through His word, comforts us through our prayers, and (sorry to say) convicts us. Our relationship with God is about continually changing our hearts.

I think as a kid, I thought that when I accepted Jesus, the heart was just cured from sin and Satan is gone. But the second, I said, “Lord, I’m sorry for my sin. I’m all yours.” Satan stood up from his seat and started planning a way to get me back.

Satan has won some earthly battles, yes, but God is working on me. Every day His speaks Truth into me. Every day, as I submit to Him, He teaches me. Every day, as I open my heart to Him, He convicts a new area of my heart and we work on it together.

I’ve seen it in my life in the last year. A year ago, as I’ve written many times, I was depressed, anxious, and broken. Out of those things, I reacted out of fear, spoke out of anger, and tore down others. God has been chipping away at each of those areas. It started with self-love and finding abundant Life in my brokenness.

Once I learned to love myself, I’ve learned to love others. Now, day-by-day, I submit my agenda, my anxieties, and my frantic lifestyle. I slip often. We hit restart. And He loves me through it all.

But here is what has happened from my life change…..I’ve seen others’ lives change.

My church often says, “Changed lives change lives.”

You see when I started loving myself, the expectations from others to work late or do their laundry list of things started to dwindle because people started loving me instead of my work ethic.

When I started loving others, their attitude they were giving stopped (though there are stragglers).

When I started humbling myself and saying, “I’m sorry that I was unclear” or taking the blame for a mistake (even if only partially mine), people started respecting me in a new way.

And then I hear these people speaking to or treating other people in the same way.

I have a long way to go…..lots of growth need, change to happen. But the fruit thus far shows me one thing:

We are called to live as though the Resurrection is real.