Jesus is alive in heaven.
But our interest regards whether or not he is alive in peoples’
hearts. Biblical Christianity is having
within one’s self the reality that is the present reality in God’s Heaven. Christians are those who hear what the Bible
claims about the risen Christ – about His death for His
peoples’ sins and His subsequent triumphant resurrection, His present session at His Father’s right hand and His imminent
return to take His people with Him and give them the eternal inheritance which
He has earned for them and they have been striving for their whole lives – and
make it their very hope and reason for living.
They are those who have this hope inside of them, and it is
a living hope (1 Peter 1:3) which completes the enjoyment of God’s very
presence, as prefigured in the Law and the Temple (Hebrews 6:19). They are gripped by the reality of God’s
presence through faith in Jesus and they are being transformed into His
presence more and more as the days go by.
They may be falling apart physically but they are coming together
spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.
Their joy is increasing as they come closer and closer to home, though
they’d gladly stay as aliens in a world that is not their home if it means serving
their Lord according to His plan.
They’re privileged to do whatever He desires for them, as they know they
can’t give Him anything, but they’re obliged to offer themselves to Him daily. Life is no longer autonomous, but gladly dependent.
They take up their cross daily, not because they hope to
earn God’s favor by suffering, but because they’re presently in a gracious
standing with Him because of Jesus (Romans 5:1-2), and their unity with Jesus
is such that conformity must mean perfect resemblance. They “fill up what is lacking in Christ’s
afflictions” (Colossians 1:24), not meaning they add to His suffering, but that
they appropriate their faith in Him by enduring the challenge of discipleship
in a world that gags at submission to Him (though He’s proven who He really is –
John 15:22). It is through their suffering that their dependence on and faith in Jesus becomes known to the world.
The Christian still recognizes the disease of rebellion in themselves;
thus they heed Peter’s admonition to “Repent” (Acts 2:38), knowing that they’ll
follow someone and give of themselves to something, when only Jesus is worthy
to hold the heart. Repentance is not a one-time necessity, but a continual discipline. Hence they are called "disciples."
Jesus' being alive is the present reality regardless of who
believes it or who will think about it for more than five seconds at a
time. Christians are those with the
truth in themselves, so that it grips them. And while they lift
up their voices and cry out day and night to their Lord (Proverbs 2:3, Luke 18:7),
the truth is setting them free as it lives inside of them (John 8:32, 2 John 2).
He is alive – but is He alive in you?
