"Another Lives In Me"
"Waybread" is food designed to strengthen travelers on a long journey. This little weekly column is intended to offer reflections that will strengthen and encourage you in your own long journey in following Christ.
"ANOTHER LIVES IN ME"
The simplest Christian beliefs are often the easiest to ignore. Take what Leanne Payne calls "incarnational reality," the idea that the real presence of Jesus lives at the deepest core of our being from the moment we receive Christ into our hearts by faith. Imagine! The One who spoke the universe into existence is alive in you! This is Good News! The Promise of Jesus is precisely this: His indwelling presence. Not making better choices or enjoying better relationships, not better character or more sparkling integrity … the Good News is that Jesus lives in us, enabling us to walk with Him day by day as we grow in grace, in virtue, in character, and as the Holy Spirit bears His fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). The Good News is the kingdom of God, and the kingdom is wherever Jesus is.
The Promise of Jesus is precisely this: His indwelling presence.
One of our elders, Josh Spiegel, was sharing at an elders meeting recently some burdens he's had to carry lately. Along the way, he said something simple, yet profound. He said he had noticed that God had shown him great faithfulness in the past, but not so much in relieving his burdens as in giving him the faith, strength, and patience to bear them with hope and joy. I hope you recognize the genuine spiritual maturity in this, and I pray that it will increasingly be yours as you lean into Christ and continue to abide in Him.
The promise of God in Jesus Christ is … Christ Himself! Alive in us. Alive in you. At work in you. Making and shaping you into the man or woman He intends you to be through His grace and your faith (really just two sides of one wonderful mystery!).
The Good News is not Jesus' teachings, but Jesus' presence and power through His Holy Spirit who lives in us by faith.
The truth, friends, is that the Christ life in us is a paradox (an idea that seems to contradict itself). It's this: Victory for the Christian often looks very much like defeat. Jesus' greatest triumphs look very much from the outside like great defeats–for example, just when the political and religious leaders of the day thought they had finally conquered Him, Jesus turns their "victory" on its head and utterly defeats them. In this same vein, Frederick Buechner called this life of ours with Christ the "Magnificent Defeat," by which he meant not only Jesus' death on the cross but our own death to our old ways of thinking and choosing and loving and relating.
Jesus didn't come to save us from pain, suffering, and death, but rather to raise us to a resurrected life that transcends pain, suffering, and death by redeeming them and using them "for our good and His glory." He was never more serious than when He encouraged His disciples with these words: "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Life springs from the ashes. Hope hides in trouble. Victory masquerades as defeat. This is the promise and the paradox of life in Christ.
Life springs from the ashes. Hope hides in trouble. Victory masquerades as defeat. This is the promise and the paradox of life in Christ.
Comfort yourself this week with the knowledge that "Another lives in me." As often as you like through the day, but especially when you're faced with difficulty or resistance or anxiety or failure, remind yourself, "Another lives in me" and find rest for your soul.
Be encouraged, friend, for God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who spoke all worlds into being, is both with you and for you.