Death and Life and Lies and Truth

We started out alive. Very much alive. We were in direct, perfect communion with God. We had no division or misunderstanding or selfishness in our relationships with each other. We were physically healthy. We were mentally sound. We were emotionally fulfilled and whole.

And then

we

died.

God told us we would, if we did That; but we paid Him no heed.

Thought we knew best.

We tried so hard, we did.

We tried to pretend we were still alive.

We hid. Hid from the One with the Answer, from the One who sees all.

And we’re still dead and we still pretend.

Outside we look alive.

Inside we are naught but a corpse.

Rotting, shriveled, dry.

We plaster on a smile and we laugh and we talk loud and we DO. Frantically, we try to convince ourselves–or at least everyone else–that we aren’t really dead inside.

But we are.

And we all know it, no matter how hard we try to make it look otherwise, no matter how many people tell us we are beautiful and good, no matter how loud we laugh, no matter how much doing we pile on top of our deadness in an attempt to look alive.

Ugly, small, not-right.

This is us.

Correction: this is us without and before Christ…Before the Christ-life comes in and fills that hollow, dried up, dead spirit of ours. Before He comes and breaths His life into our breathless spirit. Before His Life-Blood begins flowing in our spiritual veins.

But oh, when it happens–what a glorious thing!

We who were

once dead,

who were

once far off–

are alive in Christ,

brought very near

by His precious life-blood.

Why, then, do we--who are alive in Christ--sometimes still feel dead? Why do we sometimes still see ourselves as ugly, shriveled, hopeless?

In a word:  

lies.

You see, Before, the lie was:  

You aren’t really dead;  

somehow, someway, 

you can beat it.  

You can cover it up.  

Hide, run  

and hide.  

Don’t let Him see.  

Just put on some more makeup,  

maybe buy some more expensive clothes.  

Make sure you do everything  

right.  

Keep doing all those good things; maybe 

that  

will make you feel better.

Once we see through that lie and accept the Christ-life, however, the lie takes another twist.

He whispers the other side of his deceitful tale into your delicate new ears:  

You aren’t really alive.  

You’re still just as 

dead 

as you ever were.  

Look at you!  

Insignificant, putrid, hollow old you.  

Who do you think you are,  

claiming to be new, holy, cleansed, alive?  

You’re wrong.  

He doesn’t really care for you.  

Maybe the other people–look how beautiful they are.  

Not you. 

 Look at what you’ve done, who you are.  

No…you’re still dead.

 BUT IT IS A LIE.

Just as plain and simple as that.

It’s a lie.

Lies are nothing, nothing but the twisted fragments of nightmarish thoughts from the Enemy of your soul.

The one who tricked us into believing The Lie that brought death to our souls in the first place. The one who desperately tried to keep your soul dead. And the one who, now that your spirit lives because of Christ in you, wants nothing more than to keep you believing that you are still dead.

Don’t listen.

Trust.

I know you don’t see, yet.

You don’t see what God saw when He had the idea for you. What He knows you’ll become at the end of the story. You don’t see, quite, the glow He had–has–in His eyes when He looked at you. You didn’t see His joy when your long-dead spirit finally accepted His life and became new.

But you have to trust.

Trust that He knows what He’s doing. Trust that He who has promised is faithful, and that He also will do it. Trust that He makes everything beautiful in its time. Trust that His life is in you, and that you aren’t dead inside any more.

No.

You are alive, very alive.

Because The One

who is

The Life

is in 

you.