God’s Kind of Life

From God’s eternal perspective the believer in Christ is already a finished work. From our human perspective in time and space, He is continuing to work the truth deeper and deeper into our hearts so He can conform us to the image and likeness of Christ.

The tension is always there: perfect and yet not perfect, holy and yet sinners, righteous and yet, unrighteous.

Since the day we put our faith in Christ God sees us complete in Him (Col. 2:10). We are already holy in His presence (Col. 3:2). We are already perfect in His eyes (Heb. 10:14). We are His righteousness in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21). There is nothing else to be done to achieve a right relationship with God. When we accept those truths by faith we will live it out each day. God makes what is already true in the eternal, unseen spiritual reality, a reality in the seen and temporal realm. We live out what is already true. We live in union with Christ. We rest in Him and He lives His life out in us. “Christ in you” means God has permanently joined Himself to you. He lives in you and you in Him.

“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Jesus says to you and me, “I am the Life.” I am your life. You take Me into you, and you have life. I live My life in and through you. I live my life as you. The Christian life is He in you, and you in Him. He will live His life in you if you will let Him live as He chooses. Christ lives the life that is impossible for us to live. Christianity is Christ, and it is Christ in you.

Do you experience the life He gives with a sense in which you are content with a knowledge of God’s grace that is more than sufficient for your personal needs, that nothing in this life can suppress it, and that God’s favor toward you is unending? Do you live in the reality of your unending unchanging eternal position in Christ Jesus?

Our life in Christ is a life with a surplus. We have it in Christ in superabundance. Jesus said, “I am come that you might keep on having life, and might keep on having it abundantly” (Jn. 10:10b).

How do you characterize this life that overflows in Christ?

The apostle Paul described it as love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control, etc. (Gal. 5:22-23).

 Just the opposite is a life without Christ in control of your life. “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21). Jesus is not the source of that kind of life. Which life would you rather have?

The only source of God’s kind of life is Jesus Christ. He said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me” (John 14:6). Jesus puts His finger on what we most need as human beings in life.

In the presence of Jesus Christ we have received God’s answer to our individual problems. Instead of being alienated, there is “the way” to God the Father. Instead of ignorance and error, there is “the truth” of God. Instead of death, there is “the life” He gives. Only in the person and work of Jesus Christ is there the perfect way from man’s total ruin in sin to the Father. Jesus is the perfect and only way to God, and He promises to give His kind of superabundant life to all who will come to Him. The life Christ gives is God’s kind of life. Therefore, the Christian can no more perish than God the Father can. The normal Christian life is a superabundant life in Christ. Have you put your faith in Him and received the gift of His life?

Selah!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

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