Dead or Alive

Dead or Alive 

I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 

21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." 

Philippians 1:20-21

8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 

9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 

10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

2Corinthians 5

We are bound to think about death. People are born and they die. Death is basic for life. None of us will live in this body forever. It is therefore useless to live in denial of death. 

We know that life in the physical is temporal. We see people die daily, it is our reality. The earth as we know it is doomed. Whether you believe in God as creator or you feel the universe is an happenstance, the earth, the only place discovered so far with life activities, is in existence only for a while... It may be another billion years but we know it's going to become unwelcoming and inhabitable at some point the way it is. Death is inevitable! 

And so it's important that we make the most of the time we have. We would need to discover purpose and to pursue it to fulfilment because we won't always be here to do what we can do now.

But to a child of God, physical death and physical life may not really be different. A child of God is free from the fear of death. A child of God is assured of being with Christ after death. A child of God knows that the present life is precious and for a purpose. Each breath is taken in remembrance and in response to the reason why God gave the grace of this stop-gap called life.

The ultimate essence isn't to eat, drink, get entertained, give birth to other temporal beings, live daily in the fear of death and then drop dead. The ultimate essence is to use this stop-gap to prepare for eternity. I understand you may not believe in that...but then what would the essence of life be? Vanity?

There is life after death. We are created as eternal beings. We may not see God but His footprints in the physical are unmistakable except for denial and deliberate unbelief. 

People have believed in God and in Him creating man in His image and a little lower than angels long before man was able to put certain cells together that he can control digitally in 2019. Which other being would do anything near that? Is it the chimpanzee that's still living in the jungle, hardly knowing its right hand from its left, even with its genome almost same as man's?

We know man is more than his physical make up, that's why we are that far from our closest physical neighbour in everything. 

We are eternal and it does not all end with death. There is an evolution waiting for us, where we would have a glorious body when this physical one would have dissolved, powered by the new creation and the new life that is in Christ Jesus. 

Just as the state of the butterfly in its cocoon doesn't mean the end of its life, so also, physical death isn't the end of man, though not every butterfly will ever make it to its ultimate potential and be able to own a pair of beautiful wings to fly with. So also, not every human being will make it to having the glorious body, because not everyone will submit to the new creation and the life of God which is by faith in Christ Jesus. 

So, to those who have the deposit of the New creation, death is an opportunity to be clothed with the new tabernacle. It is an opportunity to be with Christ. It is an end to a lower life and the beginning of the greater life. 

To these children of God, death is gain. To them, to live is Christ. Every breath is Christ, to believe Him and to spread His truth to others in preparation for the future beyond death. To them Christ is life...both here now and beyond here, later. 

Dead or Alive, the child of God is to glorify God. He has been delivered from the fear of death, free from the harassment of life and the shrouded anxiety of death. 

The child of God lives to make eternal impact and not only to create temporary products that perish. We show the world the power of the age to come here now, we show the love, the light and the life of the coming world for people to believe and be saved. This is our purpose here now for which we live daily. Outside that, we should be on our way home, we won't be needed here anyway. Home is always better.

We make the most of being here, pursuing that vision, developing ourselves to be able to adequately show the love, the light and the life of God on the daily basis in every situation everywhere. A child of God who toys with that by losing focus and forgetting purpose endangers his inheritance. Don't forget, don't lose focus... Get working, night is coming...

Dead or Alive, we glorify Christ and His Father God! 

Giving in Relationships

Relationship Friday: Giving in Relationships 

A lot is revealed of a personality through giving, receiving, not giving and not receiving.

Each of giving, receiving, not giving and not receiving has deeper meaning than just the act. Giving may seem good on the surface, for instance, but may be redefined by circumstances and the intent of the persons involved. So is each of the elements of giving, as mentioned above.

Love is what defines any relationship. When love is missing, relationships break down naturally. Love is expressed by giving. There may be giving without love, but there is no love without giving. But love can only give what it has, so it can't be judged by the value of the gift but by what the lover has,

even if it is a flower plucked by the roadside. Love shouldn't be judged by the value of a gift but every gift should be judged by the love that motivated it.

Relationships crumble by demands. When people go into relationships with an entitlement mentality, they only deceive themselves when they expect such a relationship to work. It shouldn't work actually. Oppressive and abusive relationships thrive in the environment of entitlement mentality.

Unconditional love is a possibility, particularly when you are a child of God, born of and ruled by the Spirit of God with God's nature of love operating withing you. Unconditional love would want to give without expecting anything from the other, yet ready to receive whatever the other lover offers in love without wanting to be a burden to the other person. 

It is abusive to want to take advantage of the love the other person has for one. Love isn't what we deserve, it is what we are privileged to receive, it isn't a right and we should never take advantage of it.

A demanding spouse would not ever appreciate whatever sacrifice the other spouse is making even if it's gradually taking his or her life. Such would care only about self convenience irrespective of the pains the other person is going through to make the convenience happen.

A relationship should not be centred around giving but around loving. Love will always find an expression which is easily recognised and appreciated by love on the other side. When your love isn't receiving recognition, it is because something is wrong somewhere.

A lover sees love in everything. Whatever the other person offers is always good in the eyes of a lover. But to one who isn't in love, whatever is given is weighed by the lust in the heart. If it meets the requirements of the lust, it is good but if it doesn't meet it, then there's trouble. It will never be appreciated. It may meet the lustful requirements 99.9% of the times but that 0.1% shortcoming is enough to terminate the relationship.

It's also same with those who power their relationships with giving without love. They give to exert their places in the relationship. They aren't giving, they are paying. They are purchasing the attention and the love of the other person. They are in business. In case of an offence, they quickly refer to their gifts as collateral, they believe their gifts give them the right to override the will and the decision making right of the other person. This isn't love at all. It is an abuse.

It is the same reason why some don't take anything from others they are in relationships with. They believe every gift is a bribe. Of course, gifts are like a magic wand, according to King Solomon in the Proverbs, whereever it turns, it prospers. A gift has the power to pervert justice and influence decision making, but where there is trusted love, that would be a wrong reason to reject a gift.

We often attach our personal acceptance to how people receive what we have to offer, when they reject our gifts, we may feel rejected. But we have to be sure we should reject gifts in our loving relationships before doing so.

Of course, when accepting a gift means fueling our lusts, being inconsiderate or selling self off, rejecting such is noble. It's good not to take a gift that binds. We shouldn't accept gifts that we would regret later. 

It is good not to take a gift that's given as a token of an agreement to a deeper relationship which one isn't ready to go into. Gifts have meanings and accepting a gift when we don't agree to the meaning will be unfair. Inability to reject gifts is a weakness to many, but it is an act of nobility that should be cultivated.

Love should come first before giving, receiving or rejecting a gift. Giving should not be to bind the other person. Receiving should not be to burden or to fuel our lusts. Rejection should be on principle and not as a way of rejecting the giver.

Let giving strengthen your love and relationship, but let love drive the relationship and not giving and receiving.

Have a lovely weekend! 

Spirit Controlled Desires

Spirit Controlled Desires

[My Offline Bible] Galatians  5
24. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 25. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.

Belonging to Christ means being alive in the realm of the Spirit. There is spiritual self consciousness by reason of being born of the Spirit of God. God is spirit and those who are born of Him are spirit beings with spiritual consciousness. They are conscious beyond the awareness of the physical realm. They are alive to the reality of the unseen realm where God lives. They have broken the mental, emotional and moral limitations within which the physical used to lock them within itself. Their desires and aspirations are born out of their spiritual realities and not just by the illusions of the physical realm.

When you are born of God, you overcome the world. The world and its influence lose grip on you. Your considerations of things and of the future now goes beyond the limits of the potentials and the limitations of the world. You think in eternal format and not just in time.

And this forms the soup within which our desires and aspirations are cultured. While we can see the enormous potential of the world and would want to explore it to its limits, we also know that there are limitations that make the realm of the spirit superior and eternal.

The spiritual quality of a person is seen in his or her desires, ambitions and pursuits. Jesus said we should not seek what the unbelieving seek, rather we should seek the kingdom and God kind of righteousness. Apostle John puts it as the lusts of the eyes, of the flesh and the pride of life.

The flesh and the world are in league. They have their own affections and lusts. They use these to control their subjects, as futile and vain as they are. They present them as objects of value, earthly treasures that moths and rot eat up and thieves break in and steal according to our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, we in Christ are created and called to set our affections on things above where Christ is seated on the right hand of God and not on things on the earth, Apostle Paul echoing to the Colossians in Col 3, what Jesus Christ said.

1Corinthians 7
29 But let me say this, dear brothers and sisters: The time that remains is very short. So from now on, those with wives should not focus only on their marriage. 30 Those who weep or who rejoice or who buy things should not be absorbed by their weeping or their joy or their possessions. 31 Those who use the things of the world should not become attached to them. For this world as we know it will soon pass away

We must permit the Spirit of God to be in charge of our desires, ambitions and aspirations. With Him we can use this world only to the extent that won't take our focus off eternal things. We must know that earthly gains isn't godliness and that spirituality isn't by the things we possess.

What manner of people should we be knowing that the earth is nothing compared to heaven? What kind of people should we be knowing how brief life is and how the world with all its treasures are temporary things? It should affect our life's pursuits, our acquisitions and our distribution of the things we possess.

We should watch our affections and deal with our lusts, we are Christ's. Vain glory should not be our pursuit. Envying and provoking one another aren't part of our heritage as being children carrying the DNA of God...

Ours should be spirit controlled desires, pursuits, ambitions and aspirations, otherwise it'll all be a waste in the context of eternity!