Jesus Is Our Life

Imagine if I told you "Man is something I do but it doesn't run my life"? You would probably think I am nuts. "Man" isn't what I do, it is what I am. Everything I do is shaped by the fact that I am a man. I can't stop being a man and decide to be an elephant. I can't set it aside and just be a man during certain days of the week or times of the day. I eat, drink, sleep, work, and play as a man. It is the same with Christianity.

Christianity isn't something we do, it is what we are. Everything we do is shaped by the fact that we are a Christian. We can't stop being a Christian and decide to be something else for a while. We can't set it aside and just be a Christian during certain days of the week or times of the day. We eat, drink, sleep, work, and play as a Christian. It is not an external religion that tries to impact the soul. It is an inner "being" that impacts our environment.

I will keep stressing this until the day I die, we are a new creation, different than what we were before, changed forever. It is like a chemical change, when molecules are all changed around to form something new. We died and were born again as something completely different, capable of doing things that we could not do before and not dependant on the things that were destroying us. Where once we could not avoid the distractions and sins of this world, now we can.

Jesus is not part of our life. He is not someone who hangs around on occasion who we spend time with. He didn't set things in motion and then back off. Jesus is our life:

When Christ, who is your life, appears,then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:4)

I don't know if that is sinking in. He is not part of our life; he is our life. I can no more separate him from me than I can separate being a man from me. Everything I think, my perspective, my actions, my reactions all come through Jesus because the life I live I live in Jesus. I gave up my independent life when I died and was raised in Jesus. There was a chemical change that changed everything in me. I am not what once I was, and either are you.

This means we have to stop living according to the pattern of this world and live by the direction of the Holy Spirit. We must allow Jesus to impact every part of us. The Bible is not a set of rules to be followed; it is a bunch of road markers to let us know if we are on the right track. The Word of God is not some old document or history book; it is written on our hearts that we would live it. If we do not see in ourselves what we read in the Word it means that the relationship is not right and we need to deal with it. It is not God working outwards in but inwards out because Jesus is our life.

If Christianity remains a thing of conformity to you then you do not know Jesus. If it is a prudish thing that seems out-dated then you do not know Jesus. If Jesus is something you think about on occasion and a reason to go to church then you do not know Jesus. To know him is to be "chemically" changed forever, having died to what once you were and are now alive in him. If Jesus is not your life now then you will have no eternal life on his appearing.