Alive

Ephesians 2:4-5
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us ALIVE  together with Christ by grace you have been saved.

He had made us alive.....
Alive....the ability to experience life.
Jesus provided the power, authority and ability to take us out of our spiritual darkness, and transfer us to a new level of existence that had eluded us.
But do you really understand what it means to be alive?

It means we have the capability to experience the Joy of  the Lord. But sometimes that Joy comes in the middle of intense darkness. Sometimes that Joy comes when there seems to be no answers to what we are facing. Religion wants to cast out sweet, cute platitudes that truly have no substance. It's like eating cotton candy. Tastes good in your mouth, but has no nutritional value what so every. Religion has no spiritual nutritional value. The Joy of the Lord is food and water for our spirit in a dry and thirsty land.

The Joy of the Lord comes at the most unexpected moments when, in following Christ, we are consumed with doubts and fears. "Surely I have missed it somewhere along the way, as I have tried to follow Jesus," is a thought that precedes this joy sometimes. Hebrews 12:2 speaks of this Joy : Who for the Joy that was set before Him, endured the cross despising the shame....Life in Christ provides us with a vision to see beyond life. To see, with eyes of faith, the promises of God. To understand that faith is more than a fancy religious word for believing. Faith is the very substance on which my mind, heart, spirit and soul are nailed to. It is more than a belief system or a religious exercise. It is LIFE!

Being made alive in Christ helps us to face whatever life here on earth throws at us.
Pain? Sometimes pain is the only thing we possess that lets us know that we are alive. Yet Christ is no stranger to pain. He takes the pain we are experiencing and wraps us in His love and presence, telling us that His grace is sufficient to carry us through this momentary affliction. One of my most favorite lines every written in a song, comes from Pat Terry.  ....And it's funny how pain can touch you.....and it only makes you better, or it robs your heart and soul. All in all it defines the separation......between growing up.......and growing old. Left to me, I would run away from every pain....cower in the corner when fear comes to me.....pull the covers over my head when grief and despair knocks on my door. But being made alive in Christ, means I get up everyday with purpose and resolve to see the day through. That no matter what comes my way, I will look to the author and finisher of my faith, Jesus.

Christ has made us alive in spite of our pain....
Christ has made us alive in spite of the doubt and fear....
Like the three Hebrew men, in the book of Daniel, who were cast into the furnace to be burned alive for not worshiping the statue of the King.....Christ is with us in the furnace of daily living. The King looks into the fire and then asks one of his lessor's..."Did we not cast three into the fire? I see Four...and the Fourth looks like the Son of God." Whatever furnace you may be walking through today, know that you are not alone. Like those three Hebrews.....you have that Fourth man walking with you.

Merry Christmas from the "B's" in Attalla!
God on you...
mb