But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:11 NAS95)
In this Easter season, resurrection declares victory not only for Jesus, but for us well. New life, a different kind of life, qualitatively different from my ways before trusting Jesus, has entered.
It has taken me a long time to understand and come to grips with the reality of which this verse speaks. Recently, the Spirit quickened my heart to memorize it, so I did. As I have walked with Jesus, I have noted the Spirit really brings life like I have never known to my mortal body. My heart gets quickened when my thoughts or actions tempt or behave contrary to love.
Oh, that’s a big one! Talk about a renovation happening in my heart. Love has an entirely different meaning for me now. God has punctuated this as a part of resurrection. Living resurrection, means loving or at least learning to love as God does from God. Granted, I don’t have infinite resources to love as God does, but His kind of love now challenges me to imitate considering people as image-bearers, persons whom God values, whether I like them or not.
As such, I’ve learned God’s love enjoys variety, difference, and seeks to build community with all. Out goes my self-centeredness, my judgement of others, and in comes my openness to what God wants by intertwining, even if for just a moment, my life with another in relationship or friendship. How does God want me to perceive this person? What is His love shaping? How is He inviting me to respond to Him and this person I see?
So, this new life of the Spirit in me beckons a new perspective, a new way of looking at all of life. God invites me to engage with Him in what He desires with anything I encounter in my day. As my awareness of this has increased, my understanding of His love for me, for others, and what results in life clarifies new life.
Resurrection means the new life I live now revolves around God and His perspective on life, not mine. As I’ve grown, I have noticed His Spirit rearranging my heart to form new habits in my mortal body that deal with my interior orientation around me rather than God. Very different. Resurrection, after all, means new life. The Spirit simply leads into God’s kind of love and living from that perspective. Life like Jesus!
For Reflection:
“and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” (Ephesians 4:24 NAS95)
- How does God speak to you about living in light of the new life imparted to you in Jesus?
- How do you cultivate your life with God so that you are interacting with Him as you engage with others?
