THE START OF YOUR REAL LIFE IN CHRIST
05/03/24 07:45
We are nearing that time of the year that we call Easter when we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our re-birth into a living life. Years ago, on the way into Sydney in an electric train, I saw on a dirty brick wall, “I would rather be alive than un-dead.” There are people out there who are seekers of life. They seek a life that is eternal and a life now that is more than they have. They are seeking what John described in Jesus as spirit and life.
AN EFFECT OF REAL UNION
We get this when we begin to relate to Jesus as a real person who we need to help us live our lives in a living way. We are not born again until we do. You can live your life in a sub-life as an officer and active member of your church. But as I know by personal experience – you do not get to know Him and see in His Light until Jesus stops being your religion and becomes your Lord and your life. The following is an extract from the book, by Timothy Keller entitled, Hope in Times of Fear – the Meaning of Easter and the Resurrection (p 115).
SHAPING GOD IN OUR IMAGE
He wrote, “Paul, like all the rest of us, believed in a God who supported the person he already was and wanted to be, and who despised all the people he despised. Some want a divinity who smites the immoral and irreligious, while others want a Spirit of love who embraces all and judges no one, and still others want to believe in a universe without any God at all.
AN EFFECT OF US?
Our beliefs or non-beliefs about God are driven as much (or more) by our personal wants and needs than by reason. Aldous Huxley, the prominent atheist, said candidly: "I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning... The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do."
REALITY IS CHRIST
We should not, however, pick on atheists. There are many more people who believe in God than who do not, and we must remember Paul's startling claim that none of us without the intervention and aid of the Holy Spirit ever seek the real God of the Bible (Romans 3:10-12). We create for ourselves a customized deity, as Paul did.
A GOD THAT LEAVES US DORMANT
Certainly, a God whom you create can sometimes be a comfort, just as a dress or suit that is tailored to your body is comfortable. But such a God cannot challenge you when you need to be challenged and can never change you.
PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO IDENTITY
Think about people who are deeply unsure of their own worth, people who struggle with feelings of inadequacy. What's going to turn them into people with poise, without debilitating self-doubts? 1 John 3:20 says: "If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts." But that assumes you have a God who is there, who is real and can tell you things you don't want to believe. How can your God overcome the deep conviction of your heart that you're worthless, if he is just a creation, an extension of your heart's desires?
YOU COULD NOT MAKE GOD UP
The biblical God is a God we modern people today would never invent - a God who is holy, who cannot just overlook sin and guilt (Exodus 6:7), who is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29). It is because he is so holy and just that it was necessary for Jesus Christ to take the curse we deserve so we could receive the blessing he deserves (Galatians 3:1014). It is only this Savior, with his nail prints and wounds still visible, who can come in and say to believers, "You feel condemned? You're not! You feel worthless? You're not!" It is only this God, one who is not a product of your wishful thinking, who can profoundly re-program your self-understanding and make you something new…
REALITY IS UNREAL
As a modern man, C. S. Lewis knew that the God he was meeting in the Bible could not be something he was making up. He wrote: “Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have.”
Our God may not be something we have made up, but He might be an entity that has been passed on to us by our community and culture – a god who is not the God of the Bible, the Jesus of the New Testament or the God who imparts spirit and life because we have made Jesus a figment of the law. He may be our Jesus but is He the Christ of God? It may be a gospel in our perspective but is this the Gospel of Jesus, the apostles and the Christian Church? We may belong to the Body of Christ but do we belong as a life-giving limb or as a tumour?
AN EFFECT OF REAL UNION
We get this when we begin to relate to Jesus as a real person who we need to help us live our lives in a living way. We are not born again until we do. You can live your life in a sub-life as an officer and active member of your church. But as I know by personal experience – you do not get to know Him and see in His Light until Jesus stops being your religion and becomes your Lord and your life. The following is an extract from the book, by Timothy Keller entitled, Hope in Times of Fear – the Meaning of Easter and the Resurrection (p 115).
SHAPING GOD IN OUR IMAGE
He wrote, “Paul, like all the rest of us, believed in a God who supported the person he already was and wanted to be, and who despised all the people he despised. Some want a divinity who smites the immoral and irreligious, while others want a Spirit of love who embraces all and judges no one, and still others want to believe in a universe without any God at all.
AN EFFECT OF US?
Our beliefs or non-beliefs about God are driven as much (or more) by our personal wants and needs than by reason. Aldous Huxley, the prominent atheist, said candidly: "I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning... The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do."
REALITY IS CHRIST
We should not, however, pick on atheists. There are many more people who believe in God than who do not, and we must remember Paul's startling claim that none of us without the intervention and aid of the Holy Spirit ever seek the real God of the Bible (Romans 3:10-12). We create for ourselves a customized deity, as Paul did.
A GOD THAT LEAVES US DORMANT
Certainly, a God whom you create can sometimes be a comfort, just as a dress or suit that is tailored to your body is comfortable. But such a God cannot challenge you when you need to be challenged and can never change you.
PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO IDENTITY
Think about people who are deeply unsure of their own worth, people who struggle with feelings of inadequacy. What's going to turn them into people with poise, without debilitating self-doubts? 1 John 3:20 says: "If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts." But that assumes you have a God who is there, who is real and can tell you things you don't want to believe. How can your God overcome the deep conviction of your heart that you're worthless, if he is just a creation, an extension of your heart's desires?
YOU COULD NOT MAKE GOD UP
The biblical God is a God we modern people today would never invent - a God who is holy, who cannot just overlook sin and guilt (Exodus 6:7), who is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29). It is because he is so holy and just that it was necessary for Jesus Christ to take the curse we deserve so we could receive the blessing he deserves (Galatians 3:1014). It is only this Savior, with his nail prints and wounds still visible, who can come in and say to believers, "You feel condemned? You're not! You feel worthless? You're not!" It is only this God, one who is not a product of your wishful thinking, who can profoundly re-program your self-understanding and make you something new…
REALITY IS UNREAL
As a modern man, C. S. Lewis knew that the God he was meeting in the Bible could not be something he was making up. He wrote: “Reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. That is one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It is a religion you could not have guessed. If it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, I should feel we were making it up. But, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. It has just that queer twist about it that real things have.”
Our God may not be something we have made up, but He might be an entity that has been passed on to us by our community and culture – a god who is not the God of the Bible, the Jesus of the New Testament or the God who imparts spirit and life because we have made Jesus a figment of the law. He may be our Jesus but is He the Christ of God? It may be a gospel in our perspective but is this the Gospel of Jesus, the apostles and the Christian Church? We may belong to the Body of Christ but do we belong as a life-giving limb or as a tumour?
