Life #23 - To Live "Now" is to Hear His Voice

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Children are taught, or threatened, to listen.  By the time they grow up, they’ve managed to construct an inner schematic that shuts out, or mutes, aggravating noises—mostly adult voices. This selective hearing is the type of schematic Christians erect within ourselves that prevents us from hearing God.

How did we do that? Churched Christians have a difficult time distinguishing God’s voice apart from the church’s voice. Often we convince ourselves that when we do what our church says to do, we’re hearing God’s voice. In the process, we neglect our family’s needs and we negate our own thoughts and feelings, which is Christ in us, until we’ve erroneously muted the voice of God. As a result, our witness of Jesus suffers within our own families and within our own psyches.

Scripture says there are many voices in the world and they all carry meaning (1 Cor. 14:10 KJV). However, Christians have only one Voice we should be listening to because the meaning from that Voice holds significance:

“Most assuredly I say to you,  the hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live” (John 5:25).

If churched Christians are dead because we cannot hear the voice that “now is”—so that we can live today—then how can we expect to hear that same voice at the resurrection, so we can live again?

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts from our book to be released next year.  

Life #22 - Life on Faith's Terms

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A dear friend and brother-in-Christ fell asleep last month. He had thought about Jesus’ promise, “…whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:26 NIV), but the process to mĕtamŏrphŏō into the Lord’s image and to transform his mind (2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 12:2) was going to take time, which our friend did not have. For the rest of us, however, there is still time.

God’s promises come by faith to each of us (Romans 4:16 NIV). And although Jesus gave us the promise of life, like Abraham we receive the promise by works of faith—for faith without works is dead faith (James 2:17). Thus corruption—in the forms of aging, disease, and death—will continue to assault our mortal bodies until the promise of unending life becomes our reality, our Isaac.

Our works of faith are to participate in the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:3, 4 NIV) and—because of Jesus’ life and godliness—to live by, and keep in step with, the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:13-25 NIV). That’s how we escape the world’s corruption!

Corruption took at least 900+ years to gain the victory over Methuselah (Genesis5:27), but for us the reverse should not take so long. In fact, the mĕtamŏrphŏō process completes itself within our lifetime—all because Jesus abolished death and brought life and incorruption to light through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10).

So why aren’t Christians receiving Jesus’ promise that we "will never die"?

Perhaps our hearts are slow to believe.

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts from our book to be released next year.  

Life #21 - A Promise of Life in Two Timelines

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If we are to apprehend life, then we are wise to apprehend all those things that pertain to life. The bible informs us that holiness and righteousness are characteristics that lead to life. A third characteristic is godliness.

“…godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come” (1 Timothy 4:8 KJV).

Yes, godliness holds a promise of life in two timelines.

The first timeline is the present. Zōē-life believers partake of the promise of life “that now is”. We are few, but we’re here. The world laughs at our holiness and derides our godliness, but these characteristics qualify us to boldly apprehend zōē-life "today", "now", "currently", "in the present"—while we are alive—so that whoever lives and believes in Jesus will never die (John 11: 26 NIV).

The second timeline is for the future. The majority of Christians will die because we live to partake of the promise of the life “which is to come”. This means “later”, “not now”, and “in the future”. We all know the promise of that life, called the resurrection of the dead.

Although God is a generous God, much of our Christian walk depends upon how we choose to appropriate faith to access his generosity. Our faith-choice determines the timeline we end up in: to live now and not die; or, to die now and live later.

Godliness holds the promise of life for now or for the future.

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Scripture quotations from New King James Version (NKJV) unless otherwise noted; excerpts from our book to be released next year.