EMBRACE OUR SPIRITUAL POSITION
[5-minute read]
God is big on gifting. In God’s economy, there are no return policies for the gifts that He gives us. When we acknowledge that what we have are gifts from God, and because we know Who God is, we know that we have to keep His gifts even when we don’t know how to open it, what to do with it, and even when we often find it hard to hold on to. Gifts from God include our physical and mental health, our jobs, our family and friends, and most of all, our salvation. All of God’s gifts are important to Him.
When we treat God’s gifts as disposable possessions, we use them for their benefits instead of adding value to them. And when they no longer give us pleasure such as when challenges surface to interrupt our enjoyment of the gifts, we reject them and become resentful towards them.
God gives us many gifts but the greatest personal gift that He gives us is His Son - crucified and raised to life again. His gift of salvation is not meant to ground us but to display Christ’s resurrection power in our own lives. We can find it not only in good times, but also when we experience difficulties, when we go through times of great discomfort and heartache, and when we go through seasons having more questions than answers each day. Then, we find the heart of the Giver described in 2 Timothy 2:11-12, ‘If we disown Him, He will disown us; if we are faithless, He will remain faithful for He cannot disown Himself.’
We need to walk in three fundamental truths to fully embrace our God-given spiritual position.
Truth #1 We are spiritually ALIVE IN CHRIST
We say something is alive when we contrast it to the opposite state of decay and death. The Bible reminds us that we were once dead in our transgressions and sins, when we chose to do what suited our intellect and pleased our hearts, oblivious to the eternal separation from God that they were leading us to. (Ephesians 2:1-3). “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4-5).
We were taken from eternal death to eternal life at the point of our salvation. However, to remain spiritually alive in Christ requires us to undo some things in our lives, such as following ‘the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air’, and to redo life in a new way as a new creation in Christ. To be alive in Christ is to centre God in every conversation, every thought, and in all relationships. In other words, we cannot continue to adopt the standards of moral relativism that go against God’s standard. God is love but that does not make all love good and permissible. Proverbs 14:27 upholds that “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, turning a person from the snares of death.”
People who are spiritually alive in Christ may appear ordinary but they speak differently. They may face difficulties but they react differently. They may get along with many people but they won’t allow anyone to compete with God for their time and devotion.
It would be a struggle to stay spiritually alive in Christ while remaining unresponsive to the Holy Spirit, leaving us partially dead in spirit. Platforms like BeInReach is not a place for parasitic consumption without feeling any responsibility to produce evidence of growth. Imagine visiting the airport and constantly looking at airplanes and travellers coming and going without ever flying anywhere ourselves!
Truth #2 We are SPIRITUALLY RICH IN CHRIST
God’s salvation is a gift to us because when we were still drowning in sin and deserving of God’s wrath, He reached out to us. (Ephesians 2:8-9). “Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4).
Without God’s grace, we will be left to face the grave consequences of our sinful ways.
So what does it mean to be spiritually rich in Christ? It can be described as a sense of gratitude that perpetuates our experience of life’s ups and downs. Often, when we thank God for not giving us what we deserved, we are inclined to think only about the bad consequences He delivered us from. We are less inclined to tell people about how He confronted us about the hidden sins and pride in our hearts.
It is our deep gratitude for God’s grace and mercies that makes us spiritually rich. When we respond to godly teachings and reflect on godly counsel from the people God sends into our lives, we do so because dying to self is the only way to become spiritually rich in Christ.
Truth #3 We are GOD’S MASTERPIECE FOR HIS GLORY
The reason we want to keep ourselves spiritually vibrant and rich is found in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” We are not saved by our works but for God’s works.
We are perennially God’s masterpiece in the making - never done till we see Him face to face! We are constantly preparing ourselves for what we will become in the future. If we are only talking about how far we have come from where we were before, we underestimate the much more that is ahead. We can be sure that God does not produce antiques but He makes masterpieces of His beautiful redemptive work through our living.
When people interact with you, what do they see? Can they tell that you often hang out with Jesus?
Matthew 5:16 reminds us that we are to “shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” This is not about drawing attention to ourselves, but drawing people’s attention to Christ in us.
Tellingly, we act and sound like the people we spend the most time with. If God is not in the picture, we won’t be talking about Him, either.
To be spiritually alive and rich in Christ is not a hyperbole that we use to sound good about ourselves. Rather, it is the result of being conscious that we are still a crude form of fallenness that is not discarded only because it is now in the loving Hands of a merciful God who sees in us a masterpiece in the making.
This is a summary and reflection based on a virtual BIR Session held on 26 August 2023.
