At the end of last year, I was struggling a lot. I feared the path in which I was on would no longer be sustainable. The way I was living was not one that seemed connected to this abundant source of life God claimed to be.
I needed something new. And I needed it soon. For all that I knew was running dry and falling short of being enough. The perspective I had was losing root. I become unbearably drained.
As the weeks went on, the war in my mind between what struggle was worth my efforts got more intense. Living life with God is hard. But so is existing without Him.
So I decided to beg.
Slightly embarrassed, I made the decision that the 8 hour car ride alone to this conference I had to go to would be dedicated to pressing God for a word. Not a specific answer to all my problems. Not a vision. Not a miracle. Just a word. One that would help me understand why the Holy Spirit continued to fight my spirit of doubt in my heart.
After 8 long hours, I felt nothing. I had no revelation. And in all honesty, I was disappointed. If that extensive dedication was not enough, what would ever be?
The first night of that conference ended and I went to bed with little hope for the coming day.
I fought worship the next day to be honest. In a room full of 55,000 young people passionately praising God, you would think I was insane to not feel the heat. Yet, I didn’t.
But for some reason, I was compelled to force my body to physically do what my heart refused. I lifted my hands with palms down in surrender and then palms up for reception. This was hard. But then I heard it…
From death to life.
That was it. No further explanation. (Perhaps I should’ve asked God for at least a full sentence). But nonetheless, I knew it was not from me, because simply “life” was the last thing I would’ve told myself was enough to satisfy my desire for a new thing.
It was as if the speakers heard that same phrase, because nearly every message after that had a point or two about that perspective.
From death to life, I repeated.
So short, yet so profound. I spent months trying to figure out what I was feeling and I dodged all descriptions that sounded too far from the bounds of God’s grace. Because, though I struggle to understand His uniquely intentional love for us, I knew if I admitted I felt unredeemable, what then would have the power to pull me back into this “hope” we are called to live in?
Then someone read 1 Corinthians 5: 17-21 to me.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
There is a LOT we could pull from this, but track with me for just a moment.
Sin is in fact what God cannot be in the presence of. For it is all He goes against and the opposite of who He is. The price for it is death. Death is the absence of life. As God is life, that means for one to be dead, they are not connected with God. (Speaking in a spiritual sense here).
This, my friend, is why I fought so hard to identify with anything but dead. For it is the place outside His presence.
I was living with a perspective slowly withering away from God’s truth and instead, making root in the enemy’s territory. I believed the true severity of sin, so I caved when I heard the lies that God would not reach as far as I felt.
But praise God for His written Word.
What we see here in 1 Corinthians, is the beauty of His boundless love. A love so passionate that the grave was not too scary to face nor too powerful to keep Him chained.
Jesus endured death to life, testifying no other force could overcome and no place was too far, even that which was supposed to remain apart from Him.
He did it for me and He did it for you.
My dear friend, there is no place more distant than death, and even still, God extends His hand. He meets us where we are. And He calls us to respond through living. To give up all the life-stripping habits we know and to take on what He offers as we are covered in the grace of Jesus’ sacrifice.
From death to life.
This world is hard to endure, but when it seems as though “life” has run its worth, we have only just discovered the true meaning and value behind that four letter word.
Heavenly Father, teach our weary souls to take on the new, true, perspective of life as we let go of everything else that goes against. Let all we are and do become whole-hearted worship for You, oh Lord.
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