Christ is the Resurrection and the Life

Christ is the resurrection and the lifeLast week I wrote about Christ as the Resurrection and the Life. Furthermore, to experience Him as such hinges upon the fact that Christ lives inside of us and He wants to be our source of life.

Few weeks ago I was sharing my testimony with some freshmen about how I got involved with a Christian club on campus. Mainly I felt like I had to present what was the emphasis of this club from my personal experience.

Honestly, it was not like I prepared anything beforehand but I felt watered by the Lord myself as I was speaking concerning my own experience of Christ with the club. I personally feel that the highlight of this Christian club is the prevailing opportunities for all to not only dive into the Bible but also to speak for Christ, of Christ, and to speak forth Christ into others.

What is so special about our speaking? Are we qualified to speak for the Lord? How is our speaking related to Christ as the resurrection and the life?

Good questions! But there are more good questions to follow:

First of all, isn't our God the speaking God? Didn't we hear about the Lord Jesus because someone spoke concerning Him to us? Doesn't faith come from hearing? How can we hear when no one is speaking?

Another set of good questions:

Why do human beings have the highest intelligence in communication skills, in language? Since the purpose of God's creation cannot be arbitrary, doesn't that mean our speaking ability is specifically designed by God for Himself? Then yes, we can speak for God and speak forth God into others.

Now the catch is what is the content of our speaking. This is rather a repetitive statement but if we are speaking for God and speaking forth God into others, then our content must be God Himself, Christ Himself. This is the part where knowing Christ as the resurrection and the life becomes crucial.

On one hand, the apostles took the lead to preach Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 1:23). So of course, the gospel includes our telling out of the Lord Jesus who died the perfect redemption, the all-inclusive death, for us. We would tell others, "Do you know that the Lord Jesus has died for your sins?"

On the other hand, in the Book of Acts, the apostles repeatedly speak concerning the resurrected Christ, the witnessing (or testimony) of the resurrection, and the announcing of the resurrection as the gospel. Why resurrection?

So I turned to these lovely freshmen, looked them in the eye, and said, "Our speaking of Christ and speaking forth Christ will be our testimony that He is the resurrected One, that He is now living in us because He is still speaking through us." 

If we only mention that Christ died for us, for our sins, and there is nothing more then being Christian would only mean we accepted a great gift from God but we still don't have anything to do with His Person.

Therefore, we must bear witness of the resurrection, that Christ is living! Christ is living inside of us! Furthermore, we testify this not only by our words, what about the speaking out from our living?

Finally, I have no other answer concerning how to testify the resurrection and the life except to desperately come to the Lord who is the resurrection and the life and ask Him to save us from our own opinions, prejudices, and presumptuousness; from our own abilities, zeal, goodness, and fuel. We can ask Him to reveal to us how to live by another life source, that is Christ Himself as the resurrection and the life.

I believe that the Lord simply wants to be our source, our life. Oftentimes out of a good heart, we scramble and struggle to get to the destination of pleasing God. Yet pleasing God without taking God as our source will eventually fall short from meeting His need, His heart's desire. The bottom line is everything else falls short, only the Son, Christ Himself, pleases God. Only God pleases God. This is our gospel.

Lord, have mercy on us. We confess that oftentimes we depend upon our own efforts. Lord, cause us to take You as our source, as our life supply, as our person.  

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