True Life!

Dear Weekly Readers! God’s Peace!

Spring is here in New Hampshire, USA! The leaves are coming back unto the trees, flowers are in bloom, and the grass is growing! What a wonderful time of year. This time of year reminds me every year of the New Life we have in Christ Jesus! Just like the seeds sown, the must die, then new life comes forth! The same spiritually, as we read in 1 Cor. 15:22 (KJV)
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Our article this week is about True Life! It is written by Pastor Wayne Juntunen. Please enjoy! John R.


Who is living? You or Christ!

Isn't it amazing how slow we are to learn? God gave me the grace to repent and believe in Christ and know Him as my Savior a few months after mine eighteenth birthday. By that grace, He has been working mercifully and faithfully in my life so that to this very day I know how much He loves me. Throughout my life as one of His disciples, the Lord has taught and shown me many things. Yet through all these years of being a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, one thing I have known, more in my head than in my heart, is a truth that is now imbedded within me.

Just recently the Lord has brought to my mind a thought that has transformed my way of thinking about myself and my life in this world. It's a thought that has made a great impact upon me, and I want to share it with all of you because I believe many, maybe most, of us do not fully realize its importance. This thought is based upon the statement made by the.Apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians. He wrote: “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me...” (Galatians 2:20a).

We all know that Jesus Christ is a real person! When He, God, became incarnate in Christ Jesus to live on this earth, upon fulfilling the will of the Father as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, He returned to heaven to live a life he had never lived before. Because since His birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension, He is and will be forever both God-Man. But, also, after His ascension, Christ lives in every believer in and through the Holy Spirit. And since the Holy Spirit, who is also a real person, has come from the Father and the Son (Jn. 15:26), this means the entire Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, dwell within us (1 John 4:13-16).

So what does all of this mean in a practical sense? It means what the Apostle Paul stated to the Galatians— Christ lives in us! And it is exactly this reality that has such a far-reaching, astounding impact. Because of our fallen nature, we tend to be quite self-centered. We think more highly of ourselves than we ought (Rom 12:3; Phil. 2:3). We often are more concerned about our own interests than the interest of others (Phl. 2:4). The fact that the Apostle Paul wrote these exhortations to Christians shows that even as believers, we walk in the flesh rather than in the Spirit (Gal. 5:13-16) at times.

But we have been “crucified with Christ.” So WE NO LONGER LIVE! It is Christ who lives in us! Dear brother and sisters in Christ, do you understand what this means for your everyday life in this world? When Jesus Christ declared that He is “the resurrection and the life (Jn. 11:25). that didn't just mean the future only. Jesus Christ is today and every day our resurrection and life. This is what the Apostle Paul meant when, quoting one of the Greek poets, he said that in Christ “we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Simply put, everything we are involved in; whatever decisions we make; whatever we are doing, Christ is doing it!

Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which means we are the vessel or instrument by which and through which Christ now lives in this world. Our responsibility is to be obedient to the voice of his Spirit and maintain an intimate fellowship with the Lord so that he may continue to live His life through us in this world. (Jn. 14:12). The “greater works” are not greater in nature but greater in number.

So our daily prayer ought not to be what we can do for Christ, but that we can be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit so Christ can do what He wants to do through us. We don't do things “for Christ.” We live a life of daily communion with the Lord trusting that as He leads us, we will be doing what He desires. And by this obedience our spirit is filled with joy as co-workers with Christ. He supplies the wisdom, direction, power, etc.; we supply a body [implying our mind, will, and emotions] as “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is [our] reasonable service” (Rom 12:1).

Pastor Wayne Juntunen