With God On Our Side

19Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
1 Corinthians 6: 19 - 20 NKJV

Listening to a radio pastor the other day I believe I came across what I believe is wrong with christianity.  Well, in my opinion anyway.  In his sermon, this pulpit pounder made it very clear that there was a definate us versus them struggle out there in the world.  Not to worry, if we're good christian soldiers, then we indeed have God on our side.  However, if we don't, then God can and often does use all of the might which is at His disposal to reign in the unbeliever.  How many of you have sat through a sermon like that?  I know I have.  In fact, it was a few sermons such as this which convinced me that maybe I didn't belong in church period.  I mean, what good would it do me to sit in a pew every Sunday if God were just going to find fault with something I had done and punish me?  That didn't sound like a good deal to me.  Why?  For the simple reason that I had been living my christian life based on fear and not on the Lords forgiveness.  I didn't have God on my side.  Not only that, without God on my side there was a seperation between myself and God.  This didn't do well for my own view of God.  I wondered just how many christians have lived their own christian lives in the mistaken belief of what God might do if they messed up somehow.  In the words of an old country singer, that ain't no way to live.  First of all, as I've found out, we can spend our entire lives living the struggle of being "like" Christ Jesus only to realize that we will always fall short of such a high expectaion.  Well, I'll tell ya, if we live our lives from the belief that we somehow need to "become" like Christ...then we've lost that race before we even began.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.
~With God On Our Side~
Bob Dylan

It's hard to comprehend, but what if that struggle we have endured to be more like Jesus was in vain?  By that I mean, what if that man we've been striving to become had always been there?  Well, obviously any christian worth their salt knows that Jesus has been there from the begining.  I would suggest that Jesus Himself has always been with us from the start.  Call me misguided, uninformed or a heretic, but this is just what I believe in my heart.  After all, the apostle Paul tells us in Galations that it is Christ who lives through us {Galations 2:20}.  So, if Christ is in us, why do we need to keep chasing that dream to be more like Him?  I'll tell you why...because the church tells us we need to.  Don't get me wrong, someone told that pulpit pounder that this was the message he needed to give to make others understand how to be a good christian.  Were we created to live our lives in the pursuit to be like Christ?  No, we were created in our Lords image {Genesis 1:27}.  It is God who took the dust from the ground and breathed into it the breath of life {Genesis 2:7}.  When He did this, we no longer needed to be like Him...we WERE Him.  I know that this might fly in the face of all we have heard about who God is, and this is why I continue to tell others about the God whom they might not even know.  I don't live a life in fear of what God will do.  I live my life in that freedom of my union with Him.

7And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Genesis 2: 7 NKJV

~Scott~