Phil. 1:21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
From childhood, years before I came to understand and receive the Gospel at age 36, I always desired to move beyond this world and into the next. Of course, I had no idea what that looked like, but I intuitively knew there was something more, and that that something was good. (Eccl. 3:11, Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. NLT). In those days I saw it more as a kind of science fiction style floating through space exploring the Universe after death. Yes, even then I thought to die is gain, but I had no concept of how truly wonderful that would be! So living has never had the same appeal to me as dying in that sense. I’m weird, I know. In fact, it was Hal Lindsey’s description of the Ultimate Mind Expansion Trip, the Rapture, in his book The Late Great Planet Earth, that most appealed to me about the Gospel. Shallow, I know. As opposed to a deep convicting sense of my need for forgiveness (that came later, as I grew to understand the insidious nature and hopeless bondage of sin without Christ).
Ok, so dying is gain (for the Christian), but living is Christ?
Notice the scripture does not say
To serve is Christ (although it is)
To do good works is Christ (although it is)
To pray and praise and worship God is Christ (although it is)
To fellowship and assemble with other Christians is Christ (although it is)
To study the Bible is Christ (although it is)
To witness and evangelize is Chris (although it is)
The scripture says: to live is Christ. Yes. Live. For someone who has longed to go to heaven since the moment of salvation, this took on a new depth of meaning when the Holy Spirit shined His light on this scripture in a novel I was reading last night. You know the experience, we can be reading, speaking with someone, driving down the highway, and the Holy Spirit gives us a “hitch” in our spiritual get-along, a sense of “pay attention.”
Despite my desire and prayer to be with Jesus in heaven, I am still here (age 75), and though not involved in Christian works anymore there must be purpose in it. Paul tells us in Colossians 3:3 that our lives are hidden in Christ. We no longer live but He lives in us. I think this is far more profound and far-reaching than at first presents. We cannot grasp this of course, with our puny finite minds. As a friend and I were interceding for unsaved family members yesterday, we invoked the role from Ezekiel of standing in the gap: standing between a holy God and an unrighteous people, seeking His grace and patience not to give up on them. As I thought of that before sleep last night the imagery expanded to see my friend and myself in the priestly role (I Pet. 2:9) that Paul says we now have, hands, like Moses, raised before the Father. But as I watched, those arms and hands of ours morphed, like a computer generated graphic, into the arms and hands of Jesus, alive in us. He Himself, through our agency, intercedes for the unsaved before the Father. We know He lives ever to make intercession for the saints, but for the unsaved? We know He is active, through the work of the Holy Spirit, to pursue, woo, and win to Himself, the unsaved. But actively intercede in prayer? Of course, He is God, He can do anything He pleases, and we know God desires none to perish. But just maybe our prayers of intercession for the unsaved, our standing in the gap, has a greater significance than I, at least, had previously imagined. How is it that the things we know to be obviously true, often surprise us with the insight they are!
So the challenge, it seems to me, is learning to step my superficial self aside, and walk in the spiritual truth that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The Judi the world sees is merely a masque through Jesus wants to shine. Yes, to live is Christ. And if I am still alive, then Jesus is at work through my human agency. This is incomprehensible to me. I feel so impotent most of the time, i.e. without highly visible fruit. But is that the issue? If Christ lives in us, and our only life is Him, then everything we do, are, display to others is rooted in Him. The nexus is getting out of the way so that He is more and more visible, able to do His good work through us.
I read an interesting theory this week about the Nephilim. Have you ever wondered how an all-good God could command the Israelites to kill all the people of Canaan, women, children, livestock? I confess it has always stymied me. It is one of those things I simply have to give over to God’s sovereign wisdom. However, given that Satan has sought from the beginning to destroy God’s plan for man’s redemption, perhaps there is a consideration here. When the fallen angels procreated with human women, they polluted the human gene pool with the DNA, if you will, of beings who cannot, will not, be redeemed. This, though not mentioned, could very well be included in the reasons God had for destroying all life on the earth, except Noah and his family, in the Flood. There were Nephilim after the flood as well (ancestors of Anakites in Canaan), and how they connect to the ones who would have died in the Flood is not clear, but what is clear is that God felt they needed to be eradicated. Therefore, the need to eliminate this polluted gene pool from the line of the Messiah. An interesting possibility I think, and as good an explanation for the inexplicable as any other I’ve read. So, if for us to live is Christ, does that mean we are infused with His “spiritual DNA”? It would seem so. It is a mystery that an all-good God would share his Self, His Spirit with us, fallen, all-bad, rebellious man. But then, that is the mystery of the Gospel is it not? Selah.
May Jesus Himself shine through our lives and countenances today!
This Isn't All There Is 