GOODNESS STARTS WITH UNION WITH GOD

We can wring our hands at the perfidy of the world and post memes about evil versus virtue on Facebook. But this has a minimal effect on over-all virtue, on the abuse of women by males and the perpetual abuse of the poor by the advantaged. Then there is the killing of the earth by those who think that their only responsibility is to themselves and mammon.

The fact is -  that for many - other people and the eart  are expendable for their benefit. Glimmers of grace and love may make us hope for love as a ‘way’ but it does not generate it. Jesus Christ does.

SEIZE THE DAY
I noticed online that a doco was coming out about the life and demise of Robyn Williams. ‘An upcoming documentary examining Williams' 2014 death by suicide following his battle with Lewy Body Dementia, the film promises to bring new meaning to the late comedian's legacy by asking what the world can learn from his death.’

WILLIAMS
I have been a fan of movies in which Williams has acted. The stand-outs for me are ‘Awakenings’ and ‘The Dead Poet’s Society. The former is about the temporary ‘awakening’ of patients from a catatonic state and the latter about seizing the life out of life – about drinking the elixir of life.

SIMPLE JOY IN BEING
Not a few accommodate themselves to their pedestrian existence, as though this is all there is. Other seek to salve themselves/ignite themselves with alcohol and drugs. For many the diversion is materialism or ‘an experience’ in  eating or travel. But there is a joy of life in the ordinary that is Christ our life – the incarnation of God in you and the Everyday.

PASSION TO LIVE OR JUST TO EXIST
William’s movies can easily be seen as parables in which real spirit and life is envisioned as compared to the normality of un-life. I mean the unlife that people live as normality independently of God. And along with the meagre life people live when Christ our life has been shrunken to religion. The sad fact is, that many Christians have little spirit and life. But they do have their grab-bag of religion.

THIRST FOR LIFE
I loved the parts Williams played because they were about unconventional people who pushed through bone-headedness because they had a passion for life and for setting people free into life without limit. Real life is always unlimited. Negativity in politics and religion. The saying of ‘no’ to all that is alive, has its source in the spirit of anti-christ which is anti-life.

A PARABLE
For those with an eye to see, Awakenings can be seen as a parable about rising above the coma of religion in order to live in LIFE WITHOUT LIMIT – life of the kind that Jesus offers us via the incarnation of Himself into our being as our life.

CHRIST EXPRESSED AS US
People need to be awakened from religion because Jesus did not die on the cross, rise again and then return among us by the spirit to start a religion called Christianity. The purpose of the atonement, the resurrection and the Spirit is for christ to be us – us as individuals and us as the church. As Jesus said, ‘Unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood we are not alive.’ What does this mean? Paul explains by declaring that Jesus Christ has delivered us from this body of death aka the normal life of the un-dead outside of Christ.

DEAD TALK
It’s apparent during pre-election time that there are lots of dead people talking. Politicians speaking of ‘delivering’ when they have actually achieved little of substance and very little of that which actually matters. The parallel in the church is the preaching of something and nothing as if it comes from God.

Unless we live Christ our life we are the same as non-Believers contenting ourselves with something and nothing as if this is substance. People can be ‘good Christians’ without being really alive in their spirit. They think Jesus is about helping us live Christianity. It’s not that feeble. It’s about His life being ours so that we are spirit and life and our drawing the future Kingdom of Christ into the present.

WHAT IS THIS BODY OF DEATH?
Paul wrote, ‘Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!’

The body of death of which Paul spoke is a life in Adam, in the knowledge of good and evil, in Moses, in the law and the old covenant. It’s life in separation from God. We are not one with God in the law - not in our minds. We are in a state that Jesus calls ‘neither hot not cold,’ living near God in a mindset of separation from God, even though Christ has made us one with God.  As a result we are not alive. At least not alive with spirit and life. I am not saying we are not saved. I am saying that there’s a cup of life to drink and we are invited to ‘drink all of it’.

In Jesus Christ we are forgiven for our life and made one with His life: Holy Communion.

JOINED TO ULTIMATE LIFE
This life without limit may not be a life of ecstasy, although it may have moments of this. It is a life in which we are alive in fullness no matter what state of existence we are in. Whether poor or rich, healthy or ill, in prison or free we have this life in Christ that is infinite.

SATURATED WITH LIFE THAT IS PERSONAL
It is infinite and joyous because we have been engulfed in the triune God. This is why we need to be creatures of the spirit rather than creatures of the law. In the latter we are comatose. In the spirit we are alive with the spirit and life of Father. We are daughters and sons.

DRINK THE JUICE, NOT THE CARTON
The Dead Poet’s Society is about sucking the marrow out of life – or as Jesus would say, drinking the water of life. You have direct access to the life and person of God in Jesus Christ who is in you and with you.

A common legalism is right action and right belief – thought by many to commend one to Christ and provide a pass to heaven. But real holiness and fruit is Christ as you.
PSEUDO-LIFE
Living from sin-management gives the impression that a holy life is about inhibition. It’s not. It’s about infinite and eternal life that starts when we believe and which accelerates when we are born again. Born again means we have ceased living in religion and begun the adventure of agreeing that Christ is us. This is seizing the day par excellence. Most religious people I know do not have this kind of life. I mean they are not really alive.  I don’t mean they are un-righteous. Just not alive with spirit and life.

GLASS MOSTLY EMPTY
Many are not alive because they are trying to make a good job of religion with Jesus help. But Jesus just wants to be their life. The treasure in the field is that when agree with Him that we have been drawn into Him we become life. We become life with a name like Sandra, Michael or Jillian.

We can be imperfect people, yet alive with His spirit and life. This is because His life is His Grace covering us as well as His ignition of our spirit and soul. Justification and sanctification may be analytically distinct but they are one, in the oneness we enjoy with Christ as our life.

THIS LIFE IS NOT RELIGIOUS – DEAD MEN WALKING
Sometimes non-religious people possess this life
Fundamentalists are the least alive in this sense. The least alive because the letter kills – always. It kills our spirit, it stifles our soul, dulls our mind and cripples our being. What we get with Christ our life becomes a being that is alive. As sons of God and the creation of Jesus Christ, we ourselves become manifestations of Christ. We become a manifestation of God. This is what it means to be sons of God and not slaves of the law or cronies of religion.

ANTI-LIFE, ANTI-CHRIST
‘I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist’ 2 John 1.7 NIV. Christ come in the flesh is not people doing Christianity. It’s Christ as us. This is the meaning of the Lord’s Table.

We need to know that a religion of externalities and legalism is anti-christ. There is a war against fullness in Christ fomented by the anti-christ spirit. This is a living death that is associated with dead religion. Especially so in versions of Christianity that are based on fraudulent revelation and perverted gospels.

Some folks who will not like what I have written. Because they think religion and the letter is life and they believe that religion is what Jesus bequeathed them. This obtuseness is a spirit of iniquity that cannot be explained. But it opposes life whenever life appears in undiluted form. Just like when it rose up and murdered Jesus on the cross when Jesus appeared as unlimited life among us.

ANTI LIFE
Much of our political culture is anti-life today. Because it is based on the principle that people and the earth are expendable for the sake of mammon.

Jesus did not come to earth, return to heaven and then join us in the spirit in order that we might live a subsistence life in religion. He is among us and in us so that we may be alive to the full because He Himself incarnated in our being is who we are. In Christ we get more than an identity. We get the state of being daughters and sons of God.
‘When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory’ Col 3.4 NIV. Why will you be glorious? Because you will be alive in the fullness of you.