Live Alive {Day 7}: Power to Live Alive

Previous posts in the Live Alive series can be found here.

 In preparation for this series, I made a long list of things mark the life of a person who is living alive in Christ.  The list is a wonderful collection of characteristics and behaviors of a faithful believer.  But if I rush to sharing those with you too quickly, you might get the impression - as I did for years and years of my young Christian life - that Jesus saves you from your sins, then you spend the rest of your life tying really hard to pull yourself together and be a "good Christian."  Let me tell you, that is NOT what the Bible teaches, NOT what living alive is, and NOT the life God calls us to pursue.

I am a card-carrying member of the  RPC: Recovering Pharisees Club.   One of the select many who think they can behave themselves into the Kingdom of God but find that it is so very hard to keep one's inside desires in check, even if their outward behavior appears pious.  Living like that is exhausting, and hopeless.  I know; I've tried.  So here's the truth bomb:

Living alive the way the Lord intends begins, continues, and ends in complete and utter dependence on Him.

Look around you.  Anything that is alive is utterly dependent.  A tree doesn't exist on its own.  It thrives only with roots drawing in nutrients and water, air to "breathe", and the sun shining down from above.  Take even one of those things away and the tree will cease to flourish.  The same goes for animals; they need food, water, air, and shelter.  All of those things they must seek and use to live.  We human-folk are no different.  We need water, food, and shelter, too.  With those things we will keep existing.  But we all know there is a big difference between being alive and being ALIVE.  You can tell the difference between a plant, animal, or friend that is just getting by versus one that is prospering.

In this series' theme verses in Ephesians, when the word alive is used it is in the passive reflexive, meaning that the being brought to life was something done for us not by us, i.e. we were made alive through no doing of our own.*  It is translated: when we were dead God made us alive together with Christ.  God alone has does the work of saving!  We are dependent on Him to come alive.  No amount of good behavior, penance, groveling, or right family connections can bring a dead man back to life..

The Bible also tells us not only are we helpless to save ourselves, but we cannot live for God without His constant assistance.  God the Father sent the Son; the Son sends the Holy Spirit.  Now, the Spirit doesn't get much press because He's even more mysterious than the other two members of the Godhead, but the Spirit is the secret ingredient that will save us from pursing a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps life that will suck the life right out of us.  God makes us alive with Christ and then gives us His Spirit!

Friends, as His image-bearers the Lord wants us to thrive, flourish, and prosper in Him!  And He has given us all we need to do so by placing His Spirit in us when we repent and believe the Good News.  We begin to live alive by acknowledging our daily need for Him and remembering He has provided for us.

The Holy Spirit is our guarantee:

In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee (or down payment) of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.   Ephesians 1:13-14

The Holy Spirit is our Helper:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper (Advocate or Counselor), to be with you forever ...  But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.  John 14:15-16, 26

Knowing, remembering, meditating on the truth that God has given us His Spirit gives us hope to press on in faith and the ability and strength to live alive until Jesus comes back.  Like a tree fully supplied with nutrients, water, air, and sunshine, we have the Holy Spirit with us always to help us flourish, even in the most trying of circumstances.  The alternative - trying to live independently of the Lord - will prevent us from ever knowing the alive life He has for us.

I am reminded of the words of Jesus a little further along in the book of John:

Abide in me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.  John 15:4-5

The most humbling thing for me in considering what an alive life would look like, is that I need to let go of my independence, and throw myself COMPLETELY into the arms of my Creator, Savior, and Helper God.  With all of His promises and power, with all He's already done for me, it seems so silly that it is hard.  But I have decades of independent habits to overcome and my sinful nature is always close at hand (check out Romans 7).  That is why the Spirit is so important!  We cannot live alive without Him.

See ya tomorrow!

Heather 💛

*Special thanks for this to my pastors, Rick and Joe, for their knowledge of Greek and their willingness to answer my Bible language questions.  One of them also directed me to https://www.blueletterbible.org/ - such a cool resource.  Thanks, Joe!

Live Alive {Day 6}: Because Jesus Lives, I Can Live

Previous posts in the Live Alive series can be found here.

Jesus is a pretty well known and well regarded fellow.  He did amazing things (miracles, anyone?) and hung out with undesirables.  He challenged the religious authorities and touched lepers.  But when you read the Gospels (the four books about Jesus at the beginning of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) you quickly pick up on something about Jesus.  While things he did were revolutionary and new, He had a very specific mission from which he never deviated.  His primary purpose wasn't to do cool miracles to gain notoriety, make the Pharisees feel stupid, or even to uplift the downtrodden.  Nope.  The one thing He did everywhere was preach.

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."  Matthew 5:17

Jesus came with a message-based mission that was centered on bringing rebels back into God's Kingdom.

The fact that Jesus came with a word to preach makes me think of the beginning of the book of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  John 1:1-4

Which also makes me think back a few posts to Genesis 1: God creating the world with His word and God as the source and sustainer of all life.

You see, according to the Bible, Jesus is God.  He has been from all of time, just like God the Father, and He had a very specific role in the rescue mission.  He became a man to dwell among us, not only to show us what God is like (Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3), but also to defeat the power of death that entered in at the infamous eating-of-the-fruit.  Jesus brought the kingdom of heaven into enemy territory, and He never backed down from His role in changing the game: to set people free from death so they could live alive again!

But that would cost Him a lot more than enduring the sneers of the Pharisees and being regularly misunderstood by His disciples.  For the mission to be accomplished, Jesus needed to be the sacrifice of all sacrifices:

"The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised."  Luke 9:22

For us to have an opportunity to be restored to right relationship with our Creator, someone needed to take the punishment for our rebellion.  Jesus did that.  And He was able to do that because He lived an un-rebellious life in perfect harmony with the Father, just as Adam and Eve did before they rebelled.  Then, after taking our punishment by dying on the cross and declaring the work "finished," He rose from the dead.  He was victorious not only in atoning for the sins of all those who would believe in Him, but also over the power of death!  Because Jesus is alive, we can be, too!

I love when the women show up on the first Easter morning and don't find Jesus in the tomb, the angel present says to them:

"Why do you see the living among the dead.  He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how He told you ... " Luke 24:5b-6

Friends, we can live alive because Jesus is alive!  He could have simply atoned for our sins and left it at that.  But God, in His infinite wisdom and by His power, raised Jesus back to life, so we too could know and have life!  God the Father never does things halfway.  He extends mercy far beyond what we deserve or can even comprehend most of the time, because if we're honest we know how unworthy we are.  This Jesus-is-alive thing is really important!

With so much focus on the cross in Christian circles, it is easy to miss the significance of the  resurrection.  Yes, we are dependent on the blood of Christ every blessed day until we are glorified and with Him eternally.  But we are also dependent on the LIFE of Christ every blessed day!  Listen to Paul in I Corinthians 15:

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. ... For if they dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ... If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact, Christ has been raised form the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fall asleep.  For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive!

Jesus came, preached the message of repentance and faith, then made the way for the dead to be brought back to life: sins forgiven, life restored.  You see, the power of life rests in God alone.  I have wondered as this truth as I've thought about this series.  There was no other way for us to have real living life as sons and daughters of the King, not just existing life as orphaned rebels, than for the Life-Giver to take drastic measures.

Because of His great love and mercy, in His perfect timing, He took those measures.  Those measures can change our lives if we will but respond to Jesus' first sermon: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Are you ready?  The message and the mission were for YOU.  The door is open.  Repent of your rebellion.  Believe the Good News that the message and mission were accomplished for you.  Your sins will be atoned for, the rule of death in your life will be overthrown, and the King will lead you into a new alive life.

And that, my friends, is where we head tomorrow and the rest of the series: what are the hallmarks of this alive life?  The Lord has so much he wants us to know, embrace, and enjoy in the new life He gives.

Till tomorrow, and every day thereafter: Repent and believe the Good News,

(It's not too good to be true; it's too good to not be true!)

Heather 💛

Live Alive {Day 5}: Life is Restored

Previous posts in the Live Alive series can be found here.

Last time we were together, I shared with you about how the Bible explains what went wrong with Paradise.  God created the world to function one way (quite beautifully and in harmony with Him), humans chose to rebel against His authority and love, and, well, it doesn't take a genius to see how that has worked out!

BUT, there was that strange promise in the midst of the curses about the serpent bruising the heel of the offspring of Eve, but the offspring crushing the serpent's head.  God had some kind of plan in place to deal with the deceiver and the effects of death in the world.

As a reminder, the point of this series is to consider how we can live alive, rather than being dead men walking, i.e. people who are physically alive but not vibrantly living.  This exploration is directed at Christians who I believe, based on Scripture, should be the most "alive" people on the planet.  I think this because there is so much imagery in the Bible about God bringing His people out of darkness and into the light or out of death and into life.  It sounds so good!  And yet, because the prince of darkness is still allowed to rule here, after meeting Jesus and coming to believe in Him life can quickly dull again, because we routinely forget that we are no longer dead, but alive.  The struggle is real!

So, back to the head-crushing of the serpent!  Death entered in when Eve and Adam believed the lie that God did not have their best interests at heart and rebelled against their Creator and Lord by disobeying His one rule.  No longer could they enjoy freedom in their relationship with Him or each other, death and shame built an impenetrable wall between all those relationships.  Living in rebellion became second nature; all their offspring would be born into it.

But God, though He removed them from the Garden, never abandoned His image-bearers.  For hundreds of pages in the Old Testament, we can read stories about God participating in and guiding history for His glory and purposes.  He chooses a people, makes promises to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and so on.  He gives them rules to follow to live rightly for Him.  He places kings on thrones when His people ask for them.  (Terrible idea, by the way, but God used that to direct His people as well.)  While the kings reign He sends prophets to communicate to His people what He wants them to know.  Over and over again the people - people who have experienced God's mercy and been led by Him - rebel against His authority and love.  It's devastating.  And it is all too familiar.

You've tried, haven't you?  To be a better person?  To get your act together?  To love your neighbor more?  To be kinder to your family?  To not get so angry?  To resist the temptations to lie, steal, gossip, and lust?  Yeah, me too.  Has it worked out as poorly for you as it has for me?  I imagine so.  Or perhaps you find that you can keep one area of life together pretty well, but give in to self-love, self-rule, self, self, self so quickly in all the others!

We. Are. Stuck.

God knows.

Quoting the Psalms, Paul says in Romans 3:10-12, 20:

as it is written:

"None is righteous, no, not one;      no one understands;     no one seeks God.All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;    no one does good,    not even one."

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

On our own, we can try really hard.  But truth is, because we are born rebels, we cannot be righteous or seek God without an intervention.  All the law (God's rules for how to live alive) does for us in our rebellious state is make us aware that we are failures and cannot regain favor with God!  We need help!

Paul goes on in Romans 3:21-25:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it -- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.  For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

The only thing that can restore us to life, to right relationship with our Creator-Yahweh, is God inserting a big ole BUT!  His name is JESUS.  He is the head-crusher of the serpent.  Here in Romans Paul explains that the pages of history of God's people have borne witness to His coming and His role in bringing the rebels back to life.

God knew that they only way to restore rebels to Himself was to make the way for them.  It would cost Him a lot.  He sent His Son into the world to live in human skin and bones to show us what He is like and the extent to which He'd go to save us from death and bring us back to life.  The catch, however, is that we have to receive this atonement for our rebellion as a gift through faith.  There is a path back to living alive, but it requires us to say something similar to this:

• I agree with you God that I am a rebel.  You are the one I have offended, rebelling against your authority and love, and I am sorry - for how I've hurt you, hurt others, and tried so many counterfeit ways to live alive and earn your favor.
• I accept your gift of life through Jesus and acknowledge in my head and heart that it is the only way I can be rescued from my rebellion against you.
• I believe you take my rebellion (sin) and give me Jesus' perfect record.  (THANK YOU!!)
• I give you my full allegiance; you are my new King.

That's pretty much what "becoming a Christian" is.  From that point, we can get on with the business of living alive because we are made alive and given His Spirit to help us!  Have you done this?  Ever considered this?  Would you like to?  If you have already surrendered to God as your new leader, are you in awe that it is His work, start to finish, to bring you to faith and enable you to live alive?

I wasn't sure where this post was headed today, but I trust this is what the Lord wanted me to share.  Tomorrow we'll take a look at Jesus and what He did specifically to save sinners (us rebels) and why it is so important that He is alive.  For now, consider what a shift in allegiance could or does mean for you:

.. you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, ... But God, being right in mercy, because of the great love with with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our tresspasses, made us alive together with Christ ...   Ephesians 2:1, 4-5

Till tomorrow, live alive in Christ!
Heather 💛

Live Alive {Day 4}: A Hymn - God Be Merciful to Me

Hey y'all!  I take a break from writing on Sundays.  But here's a hymn for your edification on this Sabbath day.  Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.  James 4:10

If you'd prefer not to listen, here are the lyrics from the Indelible Grace site.  This hymn is based on Psalm 51, a Psalm of David, written after he had committed some grievous sins.

TEXT:

Scottish Psalter

MUSIC:

Christopher Miner

1. God, be merciful to me;
On Thy grace I rest my plea
Plenteous in compassion Thou,
Blot out my transgressions now;
Wash me, make me pure within;
Cleanse, O cleanse me from my sin.

2. My transgressions I confess;
Grief and guilt my soul oppress.
I have sinned against Thy grace,
And provoked Thee to Thy face.
I confess Thy judgement just;
Speechless, I Thy mercy trust.

3. I am evil, born in sin;
Thou desirest truth within.
Thou alone my Savior art,
Teach Thy wisdom to my heart;
Make me pure, Thy grace bestow,
Wash me whiter than the snow.

4. Broken, humbled to the dust
By Thy wrath and judgment just,
Let my contrite heart rejoice,
And in gladness hear Thy voice;
From my sins O hide Thy face,
Blot them out in boundless grace.

5. Gracious God, my heart renew,
Make my spirit right and true.
Cast me not away from Thee,
Let Thy Spirit dwell in me;
Thy salvation's joy impart,
Steadfast make my willing heart.

6. Sinners then shall learn from me,
And return, O God, to Thee
Savior all my guilt remove,
And my tongue shall sing Thy love
Touch my silent lips, O Lord,
And my mouth shall praise accord

©1997 Christopher Miner Music. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Live Alive {Day 3}: Death Enters In

Previous posts in the Live Alive series can be found here.

Genesis 1 and 2 teach us that God created all that is, including humans in His image, breathing life into them, making them for relationship with Him, and giving them work to do.  The impression you're left with after reading those two chapters is that the world was a good and beautiful place, fertile and flourishing.  The last verse of chapter two even says, And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.  Not only could people freely relate to God and enjoy Him and His creation, but there were no barriers or shame between them either.

So, what went wrong?

I look at the world now - and inside my own heart and mind - and my first thought is not always "good and beautiful place."  Sure, the fall foliage is amazing, but people are not living in harmony with their Creator.  And the shame piece?  Shame rules the day!  We all hide behind walls we build up to protect us from people knowing who we really are.  And, we wear clothes!  Today's world is not like what God set up in Genesis 1 and 2.  Again I wonder, what went wrong?  How could it go so bad?  Isn't God big, strong, and wise enough to keep things together?  I certainly like the idea of living in a place and in relationships like that.  Why would anyone want to screw up such a good gig?

Genesis 3 tells the story:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?'"  And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, let you die."

In three verses we learn some new things about this paradise:

1. There is a dissenting voice that lives there, one that is anti-Yahweh.
2. God had some rules that His image-bearers were to obey.
3. The image-bearers had freedom to choose to obey.
4. Death would come if they disobeyed the command about the tree.

Guys, there's so much theology in these few verses.  I don't know enough - nor do I have the time - to go into it all.  But maybe, reread those again.  I'll wait.

As I think about it this morning, I'm struck anew by the fact that God could not have been surprised things went south.  He gave His people a choice from the get-go.  They were not puppets.  And, the serpent who speaks had already chosen to defy God (he is believed to be the devil or satan - whose name I refuse to capitalize, haha - who was an angel who had rebelled against the Lord).

But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

The serpent gets at the woman with a lie: the God that made you and put you here doesn't actually have your best interests at heart.  You could do better.  He's withholding something from you, but you can have it!

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked ...

Darn it.  Rather than tell the serpent where to get off and remain loyal to their God, Eve and Adam believe the lie and rebel against their Creator.  And THAT is what went wrong.

You may notice that they did not die, as the serpent had said.  At least, they didn't die in the sense that we think they should have; you know, like God didn't smite them on the spot, ending the human race.  But rebellion opened the door for death enter in.  No longer could they be freely together.  No longer could they enjoy strolling in the garden in God's presence; they hide from Him, v. 8.  And a blame-game begins: the woman made me do it, the serpent made me do it!  (Every parent in the world knows this game among their children quite well.  And we all play it, too, if they're honest with ourselves.)

Sigh.

We need to note something here, in this dark space when paradise is shattered by rebellion against the Good Creator (who only gave them one real rule!): they don't die-die.  God is gracious.  The image-bearers have to leave the garden and  life now will be plagued by curses (vs. 14-19), but God clothes them and makes a promise, to the serpent.

I will put enmity between you and the woman,between your offspring and her offspring;he shall bruise your head,and you shall bruise his heel. (v. 15b)

Even as rebellion destroys paradise, God's discipline is full of mercy.  Hey image-bearers, you really blew it for selves and your descendents.  Your new existence under death is gonna be hard, but I have a plan to restore our relationship.  Time will bring it to fruition.  I am not abandoning you, but you and your offspring must now live out your days under the rule of death.   Living alive,  the way I created you to, will now be fraught with struggle and sorrow.

That struggle has been the hallmark of life since Genesis 3, which explains why it is so hard on our own to know God, relate well with others, choose joy, to live alive.  But by believing in Christ, the only one to never rebel against God, we can be restored to right relationship with God and receive help from His Spirit to overcome our own desire to rebel and try to rule our own lives.  We'll learn even more about Jesus and His role in living alive next week!

Heather 💛

Live Alive {Day 2}: Created for Living

For some of you, the next few of posts will be review.  You're quite familiar with the Bible stories about creation, "the fall," and God's redemption plan.  For others, you may only think of the season we're in when you hear "the fall."  Wherever you find yourself on that continuum, my prayer is that the Lord will use each post to draw you deeper into life with Him.

What do you think of when you hear the word alive?  Naturally, most of us probably think of breath, heartbeat, blood coursing through veins.  Then, if we think about longer, we move toward thinking about feeling alive, like our life has drive, purpose, and meaning.  Or people talk about really feeling alive when they're doing something daring or starting a new adventure.  I think, and I hope it's safe to assume, most of us think being alive is a positive - we want life to keep on being.  Death or even despair are things we don't like to talk about or experience, even though we know they are part of life.

To explore the concept of life from a Christian perspective, we need to open up our Bibles and we need to start with the first page where it says, In the beginning, God [Elohim - God the awesome and majestic creator] created the heavens and the earth.  Hey, earth, that's where we live!  This may have something to do with us.  For many verses, the author goes on about how God created the earth and the creatures that dwell on it.  Then in verse 26-27 things start to get personal:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.  And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth"

So God created man in His own image,in the image of God he created him;male and female he created them.

I'm fairly certain that a billion and one sermons have been preached on these verses, and there are so many things to learn (since God's Word is living and active) and angles to take.  But for now, we are simply thinking about how we were created for living.  Did you know there is a second account of creation in Genesis 2?  There is!  It hones in on the creation of man and woman:

Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. ... Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him. ... So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.  And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ... And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.  (Gen 2: 7, 18, 21-22, 25)

Genesis 1 tells us that we were created in God's image and then Genesis 2 gives us a little detail about how God formed us: dust from the ground or a rib and the breath of life breathed into us.  God gave Adam and Eve rule over the rest of creation.  There was something different about this species of creation, this humankind.  The major difference came from their relationship to this God who created them.  The personal-ness of the relationship is expressed in Genesis 2 with the use of the name LORD God, which is Yahweh, "which is God's personal name and used in the context of God having a relationship with His people." (In our Bibles, if Yahweh is used, it is written in all caps.)

So a couple of things about being alive:

1. There is no life apart from God; he creates and sustains life.
2. God intends for life to be lived in relationship with Him and according to His rule and direction.

Tomorrow we will venture into Genesis chapter 3, where things go terribly wrong!  But for today, let's meditate on these two Bible truths.  I encourage you to consider what it means to you that God is your Elohim (creator) God and your Yahweh (wants a relationship with you) God.  And, if you want to take it a step further, also consider what it means that that is true for those around you, too. Our God is so great that one name can't encompass all that He is!  Let us awe and wonder that this God of all cosmic power and dominion also breathed life into humans and created us specifically in His image and for personal relationship with Him.

You were created to LIVE!

God loves you and made you on purpose.

Believe this good news,

Heather 💛

Live Alive {Day 1}: An Introduction

Last time we were together, i.e. if you read my teaser post about this series, I left you with a few questions.

• Have you experienced being brought to life by God?

• Are you living alive?

• What the heck does that even mean?

Probably since the summer - I wish I had a better memory - I have been wondering about what my life would look like if I "lived alive."  What I mean by that phrase is this: What if I really lived like Jesus has saved my soul, because I really believed that I am alive-alive, no longer a dead woman walking?  Because from my understanding of Scripture at this point in my life, Christians should be the most alive living people on the planet.  Jesus says things like, "I have come that they might have life and have it to the full or abundantly." (John 10:10)  That gives me the impression that knowing Him means a lot more than a ticket out of hell, but rather eternity with our Lord and a life that is vibrant, flourishing, and beautiful now.

How many of you would describe the way you are living right now as "vibrant, flourishing, and beautiful"? Not many of you?  Uh-huh, I thought so, because I am right there with you.  And I say "the way you are living" rather than "life" because I also believe from Scripture that our circumstances don't have to be vibrant, flourishing, or beautiful for us to live that way.  Oooo, that's a hard pill to swallow.

But I get ahead of myself.

For now, I simply want to introduce Live Alive and give you a general idea of where we are headed in this series.  I have loved how God has been leading my mind all over the place and His Word as I've been mulling this over!  So here's the deal, our central verses are Ephesians 2:4-5, (this is from the English Standard Version):

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ -- by grace you have been saved.

We will get into the surrounding verses later in the series, but these two verses give such an excellent summary of the Good News.  Let's pause here a minute and make some observations:

• God interrupted something (see "But")
• He is rich in mercy
• He loves us
• We were dead in our trespasses (fancy word for sin)
• God made us alive with Jesus
• We are saved by grace

That's just a quick list!  In summary, God majors in mercy, love, and saving grace; we were dead, but God made us alive in Christ.  What I immediately take from this is that until God makes us alive in Christ we are dead men walking.  We have breath in us, we can do all the things, but something about us is dead and unreviveable without God's intervention.  I also extrapolate that once God has intervened, I should no longer be living life like a dead person!

And that my friends, is what we'll be exploring this month, to get to answering those questions I left you with last time. First, we'll set up some backstory, like, how the Bible says we were made, how we became dead men walking, and what role Jesus plays in bringing us back to life.  Then we'll dive into what that new "alive life" looks like, examining how Jesus lived and the various commands and encouragements the Bible gives us to pursue this amazing alive life the Lord longs for us to embrace and LIVE.

Thanks for joining me; I am so thankful you are here!

Heather 💛