But what really stuck out to me in the reading was how little we seem to value the significance of our Savior's Resurrection. I posed this question to two members in our class: If you were explaining the Gospel to your friends, about how Jesus died for your sins, etc and they asked you "what is the reasoning or importance behind Jesus' resurrection," how would you answer that? One of the people I asked had grown up in the church, and the other was recently baptized, but neither of them had an answer. How could this be? I was stunned. How did our walk with Christ turn into something so generic that something as fundamental as His victory over death become overlooked? This Resurrection is the cornerstone on which our faith is built upon. There was a quote in there along the lines of "The idea of resurrection was not developed in the church, but rather the church was developed on the idea of His resurrection." I felt a sinking feeling in my heart as I began to realize that for many of us (I am also among the guilty in this), a relationship with Christ often times is just summarized by "God loves me, I should love God. I should serve in church and read His word because He sent Jesus down to die for us so that I can go to Heaven." While this is true, it requires further expounding. With a mentality like the one I just mentioned, we'll easily fall into the groove that we got this whole "Jesus thing" figured out when in fact, we know nothing at all.
There were a few good answers from our other classmates after that awkward moment but the damage I felt inside had been done. I've spent the last few days feeling slightly feeble and weak, spiritually. It was a paltry feeling of hopelessness. There's so much about Jesus that I still don't know, so where does this false sense of security come from? Why do I stand proud in the church like I've come a long way when I'm actually still inching on my baby steps?
Don't worry guys, this isn't a post that ends in self-pity and shame, rather it was quite a humbling experience. Here I am, always fretting about the frivolous and insignificant, living day to day and prayer to prayer. If you guys haven't read the post below mine (by Melissa), I highly recommend it. It's the kind of superficial lifestyle that I'm often times guilty of. For example, out of impulse on Christmas Eve I had blown nearly three bills to buy myself a pair of Beats by Dre headphones (and y'all know about it because of my showing off). But it was because of this humbling experience that led me to spend over an hour of my time at two different Fry's returning it. This is not to say that we must deprive ourselves of all wordly pleasures. Quite the opposite actually. When we give our lives up to God, He'll bless us in our lives. The only discrepancy I see here is that the 'awesomeness' of this treacherous and temporal world is like a black hole trying to suck us in, and consequently, we'll become its slaves. As small as my physical eyes are, their focus is always on the wrong goals.
Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.
One of the words that came up several times in this chapter of Resurrection was irreversible. Yes, Death is in-fact irreversible. Nothing we do and no amount of good deeds will ever bring our loved ones back. You know what else is irreversible? Time. Every day I spending living for the moment and living for the glitz and glam of the world is another day wasted and another day that I will never get back. We dream about rippling muscles, pearly whites, and a nice slender body shape... we dream about an unnatural form. For Jesus, being in this body on Earth was His unnatural form. His scars are reminders of the pain and suffering He underwent in this form to free us from the grips of this world. As a follower of Christ, this world should no longer be my natural form, and each day I spend diddling in the pleasures of it all, is another day wasted not completing my mission.
#missionpossible
amen! great post!
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