You Have Been Made Alive

Our spiritual senses awaken.

The Bible begins to make sense.

We hunger to be in fellowship.

Former sinful actions begin to leave us empty.

We feel a peace that passes understanding.

When I was journeying into faith late in high school, a good friend who was a Christian gave me a Bible. It was the old Living Bible, which was the easiest to understand of all Bibles. But still I found it puzzling. It was also not great that my friend suggested I begin with Acts and the Psalms. But after I became a Christian my parents bought me a King James Bible—in many ways the most challenging translation, as it was written over four hundred years ago. But amazingly, I was able to read and understand it.

My spiritual senses had been awakened, and the truths of the Bible began to make sense. Also to my surprise, I suddenly had a deep longing to be with other Christians. This was surprising because I detested church as a kid, and I found most Christians a bit odd. But after my conversion I wanted to be with these peculiar people (1 Peter 2:9 KJV). Because, I would learn, they were now my family of faith. I was not a huge partier, but after my conversion parties felt hollow. I was not immune to sin by any means, but sin felt different now. Finally I felt a peace I had never felt before. Even when my life was uncertain I felt peace—I did not know where my life was going, but wherever I was going I was going with God.

I am fascinated by the work of those who restore art. There was a painting, completed in 1660, by Charles Le Brun. The 355-year-old family portrait was covered in badly tinted varnish and had a lot of scratches and structural damage that had nearly split the painting in half. It took ten months for the restorer, Michael Gallagher, to bring the painting back to its original form. He had to retouch, restructure, and revarnish in order to bring this painting back to life, back to its original form.

You and I were made in God’s image. We are embodied souls, or ensouled bodies. Christianity teaches that our souls are never separated from our bodies. Our embodied souls contain the image of God. But what is the image of God in us? Some will say it is our ability to think or dream, our longing for beauty, or our ability to have dominion over things, as promised in Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion.’” None of these are the image of God in us. Christ Jesus is the image of God: “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15).

You and I come premade to be conformed to the image of Christ: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). The image of God is a part of our embodied souls, but it has been deactivated because of the fall. When we are raised to new life in Christ, the image of God is restored in us. We can now resemble the God in whose image we were made.

When we meet someone’s parents, we can often see the resemblance. Sometimes it is uncanny. People say of our daughter, Hope, that she is a “mini-Meghan” because she physically resembles my wife. If all humans are made in the image of God, we ought to all resemble God. But if an alien were to come to earth and look at humans and ask, “What is your God like?” it would be absurd to say God is just like the humans who are made in God’s image. Because apart from Christ, we are fallen and broken—cracked icons and distorted images.

The only answer to the question “What is God like?” is Jesus. Jesus told Philip, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9 CEV). This is how Jesus restores the image of God in us. By rising and giving us new, eternal life, the image of God is restored in us. A sincere Christ-follower, who is acting in love, compassion, self-sacrifice, and forgiveness, is the closest we humans ever come to resembling God. And even then it is not us, but Christ who is in us.

One of the great disappointments in our world today is un-Christlike Christians. One of the leading causes of unbelief is Christians who are not living vibrant lives. I think the primary reason for the lack of maturity is a failure to understand the finality of the cross and the reality of the resurrection. In their place we have focused more on rule keeping and moral behavior, which are important but only as the byproduct of new life in Christ—not as a substitute.

Write down “The finality of the cross and the reality of the resurrection” in your journal. Reflect on these words and write what they mean to you.

In 2 Peter 1:4-9, the author lays out a challenge for Christ-followers to grow in faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. These are the marks of Christian maturity, as are the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, etc.). But these marks, these fruit, are dependent on our remembrance, our awareness, our confidence in the “cleansing of past sins” (2 Peter 1:9), and our trust that in Christ we are now “participants of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

Thus he has given us . . . his precious and very great promises, so that . . . [we] may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. (2 Peter 1:4-9, italics added)

As long as we think we have not been cleansed and we are not partakers of the divine nature, we will be stuck trying to manage our sins and trying, by our willpower, to become like Christ.

When we come to understand our true identity in Christ, barriers to spiritual maturity fall down. Our formation in Christ cannot happen as long as we are disconnected to the life of Christ within us. Oswald Chambers wrote,

The characteristic of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that Christ is formed in me. This is not a command, but a fact based on the authority of God. The evidence of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that “Christ is formed” in me. And once “Christ is formed” in me, His nature immediately begins to work through me.

It is the nature of Christ in me, the restored image of God in me, that is the secret to my maturity in Christ. And the world we live in is desperate for this.

The imago Dei inside each of us, then, is the image of Christ. But what is that image like? What would it be like for you and for me to have Christ living in us? For years I assumed that this would be an eternal, cosmic bummer. I mistakenly assumed that if I gave my life fully to Christ, I would never have any more fun. In the words of Billy Joel, “I would rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.” I assumed all the sinners were the ones having fun, and the saints were sobbing in some sanctuary.

But Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). He promised abundant life. He also prayed for his disciples, “I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves” (John 17:13, italics added). Jesus came to give us his joy. Presumably, the disciples did not say, “No thanks, Jesus, we will pass. You are a dud. Your joy will not complete us!” They knew Jesus was a person of joy. How did that get lost in our day?

Dallas Willard wrote,

The One who came to give abundance of life is commonly thought of as a cosmic stuffed shirt, whose excessive “spirituality” probably did not allow him normal bodily functions and certainly would not permit him to throw a Frisbee or tackle someone in a football game. But God is not opposed to natural life with all of its pleasures and pains and is even very favorably disposed to it.

What does it mean to have the abundant life Jesus brought? A central part of the abundant life is the ability to seize the beauty of this life, and to live with gladness as a result of it.

Do you agree that our souls cannot endure deadness? Why or why not?

Our souls cannot endure deadness; they were designed for an adventure, and sin is ultimately a dead end because it is inwardly focused. We have been falsely led into believing that spiritually mature people should not play, seek diversion, or engage in helpful amusement. But spiritually mature people are characterized by what they do, not by what they don’t. God has designed us so that our joy would be full and complete, and that can only happen in Christ. A non-believer can have fun, but that is not the same as joy in abundant life in Christ.

The greatest adventure I have ever had is living with Jesus in his unshakable kingdom. Every day is an opportunity to watch God do some amazing work. Bishop Will Willimon once said, “The greatest sin Christians can commit is boredom.” For years I found the Christian life boring, but that was before I learned about the kingdom of God and an interactive life with God. We ask too little and attempt too little, because we think we are alone. But God is intimately involved with us and wants to empower us to live an abundant life of surprise. Your embodied soul was not made for sin, but for happiness and fun and excitement. And all those things can be godly. Holiness and hilarity are not opposed.

Jesus invites our souls into rest. He knows that life is hard. He even said, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33 NIV). He did not say we might have trouble, but that we will have trouble. It is a mandatory fact of life. So he invites us into life with him in his easy yoke:

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30, italics added)

Jesus invites us to take his yoke upon us. A yoke means two things. First, it refers to a rabbi’s teaching; the yoke of a rabbi was his teaching. So when Jesus invites us to take up his yoke, he is inviting us to live into his teachings. That is why Jesus said to take up his yoke and “learn from me.” We really can learn how to love our enemies and bless those who curse us and be free from anger, but not on our own.

The second aspect of the metaphor of the yoke is from farming. Animals are yoked together to harness energy. Two oxen pulling together are very powerful, as any farmer back then would have known. To take up the yoke of Jesus is to be united with his power. Paul knew this, which is why he said, “For Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses. . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10 NIV). Notice that he did not say, “When I am weak, he is strong”; he says, “When I am weak, I am strong.” This is the secret of the easy yoke.

I spent two weeks in Australia working with ministers who had been learning how to live in the easy yoke of Jesus. Dallas Willard had been there many years earlier and taught these men and women how to do ministry by the power of Jesus, not their own power. At the end of my time with them, they presented me with a mug. It had Dallas’s face on it, and a quote of his that read, “You Don’t Have to Make It Happen.” One of the ministers told me why they chose this saying: “Our work in ministry is very hard here in Australia. Dallas said this quote to us many times to remind us that we are not the ones who have to make it happen, but that we are in partnership with Jesus. He is the One who makes it happen.” To this day I treasure that mug, and when I drink from it I smile.

Another of Dallas’s quotes that he often said is this: “Do the next thing you know to be right, and expect God to bail you out.” This is also what it means to live in the easy yoke. We simply trust the teachings of Jesus and put his words into practice (the next right thing) and then we trust God to bail us out if needed. For example, Jesus said we must not lie (Matthew 5:37). Life puts us in difficult situations where lying seems like a good option in order to avoid pain or gain pleasure. But if we tell the truth, for example, in a job interview as opposed to “spinning” the truth, we can then trust in God to help bail us out. If we don’t get the job, we are not in trouble. We live in the unshakable kingdom. God will take care of us, just as he does the birds of the air.

Learning the secret of the easy yoke and learning that I do not have to make it happen has sustained me in ministry. I nearly killed myself early on in ministry, as many other pastors and church leaders do. If the devil cannot get you with the usual sins of the flesh (lust, money, power) he will get you through busyness, stress, and the pressure of thinking we have to make it happen. What I have learned is that Jesus did not come to help me serve God. Jesus did not call me into ministry to serve him; Jesus called me into ministry so that he could minister to others through me. Most of the time, this means I need to get out of the way.

Stan, the student who came to me many years ago to learn about the finality of the cross and the reality of the resurrection, was so taken by the image of being a butterfly that he told me it had become his primary way of thinking about his identity. He asked me if at our next Campus Fellowship meeting he could tell his story of abuse and how he had found strength in the midst of this suffering. I said sure. That next evening he gave his testimony, and there was not a dry eye in the room. Stan ended his talk by saying, loudly and proudly, “But I know who I am now. I am a butterfly.”

A few months later, Stan shocked me by saying, “I want to talk with the uncle who molested me. I want to tell him that I have been forgiven and made new in Christ. And I want to tell him I forgive him.”

I said, “That may not be a good idea.”

“Why?” Stan asked. “God has forgiven me, and God said we need to forgive others.”

“But are you ready yourself? And are you ready for how he might react?” I asked.

He said he was. I told him if he must do it, then I would prefer he do so with a trusted person.

As it turned out, the singer-songwriter Rich Mullins, who was attending the Campus Fellowship and had heard his story and was very moved, offered to go with Stan. His uncle denied any wrongdoing, but that did not matter to Stan. He offered him forgiveness—not just his forgiveness, but the forgiveness in Christ. Stan gave him his testimony and told him about his love for Jesus.

Stan graduated, and we lost touch for several years. Then one day I received a card in the mail from Stan. In it he said that he had become a Navy SEAL, and that he had gotten married and had a child, and he included his family picture. He thanked me for teaching him about the finality of the cross and the reality of the resurrection, and ended his note by signing, “Stan, the Butterfly.”