1 Corinthians 6: 19 - 20 NKJV
I've been reading a lot lately about the difficulty of living a christian life. Not a Christ centered life, mind you, a traditional christian life. Just the other day, Wayne Jacobsen grappled with a discussion on how we are to let God provide for us. To me, the answer to that question is simple at its base, but I read the opening nonetheless. What I took out of Waynes discussion is that same question, how do WE allow God to direct, provide and generally be...God? I believe that the answer to this question lies less with our living a christian life and more with living the "God life." What's the God life? The God life is dealing with everything in our lives as if God Himself has a hand in it, because He definately does. I've written before about the error of seeing ourselves as seperated from God, and it is that belief that is at the base of much of how we see God these days. When we adhere to this line of thought, our thoughts will naturally focus more upon ourselves than on our heavenly Father. This isn't living the God life. The underlying belief for living the God life is the realization that God has never been seperated from us. He has always been here among us. The apostle Paul assured us of this belief in Galations when he explained the indwelling Spirit of Christ Jesus in each of us {Galations 2:20}. When we realize the truth of Christ Jesus in us, we've taken a huge step to living the God life. What if Wayne, instead of asking the question of how to allow God to provide for us, instead proclaimed with confidence that God WILL provide? After all, to live in the God life, we are already assured of this. We do not see God as someone we need to approach seperately from ourselves, but someone who intimately knows all that we need. God is not one who needs to be reminded of by anyone about any aspect of our lives. If we live in the God life, we do so with the confidence that everything we experience, He does as well.
20“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Galations 2: 20 NKJV
Have you ever wondered where God is? Yeah, me too. Well, in our hearts we know where God has always been, but one lie from the accuser turned us from being secure in our creators presence to the belief that He was somehow removed from us. That's right, the moment satan asked Eve "Has God indeed said," he opended the door of our own doubt in the truth we once knew. Satan claimed to Eve that once she ate of the forbidden fruit that she would "be like God." Well, the truth is....SHE ALREADY WAS. Did God somehow change? No, WE changed. We went from living our God life to a life in the false belief that we were seperated from our Father. Now, one might argue that at the fall God was somehow removed from our presence, I don't buy it. If anything, it is we who failed to see God in ourselves. That, in a nutshell, is the difference in living the God life and just a normal christian existence. So, yeah, I can understand why someone would wonder where God is. In reality, it is God who is patiently waiting for His children to come to the realization that He has always been there. This is illustrated in one of my favorite parables from the new testament. As Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son, He relates to us the story of our own lives. It is we who left the only home we had ever known and set out on our own. Not only that, when we finally realize that the grass wasn't all that green on the other side, we wander back home full of guilt and shame as the prodigal son did. The good news for us is that our heavenly Father is not set upon punishment for our sins, but on redemption. He's all about our own restoration to that life we once knew, because it is there where we knew the joy of knowing Him. His desire is for us to return to a life knowing we are in Him, and He in us {John 17:22}. That is the God life.
6knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7For he who has died has been 2freed from sin. 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11Likewise you also, 3reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6: 6 - 11 NKJV
~Scott~
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