Dead?

Look at any birth certificate from just about anywhere and you will see the title of the document "Certificate of Live Birth". Something as fundamental as this is evidence of why it's so hard for many of us to fully embrace spiritual things. We "see" ourselves as alive and we don't discern the difference between being alive spiritually and being alive physically. Here is where I reflect on such a small phrase with GREAT impact - In the movie 'The Matrix', the character Neo, played by Keanu Reeves is talking to Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne). He'd just been awakened from the matrix into the real world and he asks the question "Why do my eyes hurt?" Morpheus' reply was simple, yet simply earth shattering: "You've never used them before".

All too often, we study the Bible to try and make sense of it, but at the ground floor of that process is our 'natural' understanding and the regrettable part of this is, there is a way to function with a natural understanding of spiritual things - it's ineffective, unfruitful, frustrating and limited.... but in the confusion that ensues, many people remain fully convinced that the solution has a natural answer. This way of thinking assumes that Christ came to make dead men better somehow, but He didn't come to help you do life His way, he came to make dead men alive. There's nothing salvageable from your dead self, everything must be submitted to His way.

Here's The Word:

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Romans 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Now, realize that there are two realms - the realm of darkness and the one of light. Everything about the spiritual (light) realm is Truth as truth is that thing that reveals God Himself. Everything about the carnal world (dark) is broken, compromised and leads to increasing darkness and death. These realms have similarities but they're nothing alike. Both have their own particular glory, wisdom, forms of godliness, and goodness, but even in this, these realms are not only incomparable, they're incompatible. And they're not only incompatible, they're vehemently opposed...they're enemies. This is why Isaiah 64:6 saying that our righteousness is as filthy rags makes sense, it's spiritual and what beauty can the dead offer to the Holiest of ALL living.

The solution to understanding this is not a natural one. As we wake up in this world daily, we have to recognize that an old, natural operating system boots up with us, impressing itself upon our understanding. It tries to influence us that if we want to 'be good' there are some natural things we must do. If we want to prosper, there are some natural things we must do, and if we want to live for Christ, there are some natural things we must do. This is where we have to resist what comes naturally, and lean(yield) to the truth of what Christ has done in awakening us spiritually and telling us that we can't DO things to affect our lives the way we did when it was ALL natural.

Romans 6:13(b) but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.


In Him,
Cros