By David Ryser
I grew up watching cartoons on
television. My favorites were the Warner
Brothers cartoons with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, the
Roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote, and all the others.
These cartoons provided me with hours of entertainment and lots of
laughs. They still do. They also fed me some benign, and even
amusing, misinformation along the way (I was an adult before I knew the Scarlet
Pumpernickel was actually the Scarlet Pimpernel). As engaged as I was in watching these
cartoons, I never believed--even at a very young age--that cartoon characters
were alive.
I never confused animation with
life until I became a Christian.
I had just come out of what I
thought was a great worship service. The
music was upbeat, and the congregation was energetic and demonstrative in
worship. These are good things, and I am
in favor of them. Sometime after the
service, a young man in the church (who sees into the spirit more than he lets
on) described the scene he saw during the worship time in words I will never
forget. He said, “As the people were
worshiping, I saw empty shells jumping up and down.”
Hearing something like that will
make a guy think, and I’ve thought about what he said for some time now.
Animation is not life. Just because something (or someone) moves,
talks, acts, and mimics the other attributes of living does not mean life is
present. In the Garden of Eden, God told
Adam he would “surely die” if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil (Genesis 2:17). “Surely die” in the
Hebrew text is a repetition of the word “die” (“die, die”) which intensifies
what is being said. God wanted Adam to
know He wasn’t kidding about this, and told him he would die immediately upon eating
the fruit, not die slowly over time.
Adam ate. Adam died. Adam continued to walk, talk, breathe, eat,
sleep, work, build, procreate, etc. But
he was dead.
Adam went from being a “living
soul” to being merely animated--a human cartoon character.
In numerous places in the New
Testament, especially in the epistles of Paul, a person who is outside of
Christ is described as dead (Ephesians 2:1, 5 and Colossians 2:13, among
others). This person may show all the
signs of life, and be biologically alive, but he/she is nothing more than a
spiritual cartoon. And religion won’t
make a person alive. Jesus was talking
to God’s people (not to the Romans or the other Gentiles) when He said He had
come to give them life (John 10:10).
We need to understand there is no
life outside of Christ’s life in us.
Paul was not using a figure of speech when he said he had died and that
“it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now
live in the flesh I live by the Son of
God’s faith (literal translation) who loved me and gave Himself for me”
(Galatians 2:19, 20; italics added). All
people, no matter what they may call themselves, are dead outside of
Christ. There are only two kinds of
people on the earth: those who are dead
and those who are alive through the life of Christ that was planted in them expressing
itself through them. Does that sound
weird? What can I say?
Blame the Bible and take it up with
the Author. I didn’t write it.
Life in Christ involves more than
coming to a knowledge of Jesus, getting our theology straight, and agreeing
with a creed or a doctrinal statement.
The devil knows all of these things and it doesn’t do him any good
(James 2:19). We must encounter the Lord
of Life and be “born again” into newness of life. And when did “born again” become synonymous
with “new and improved” anyhow? If we
are in Christ we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), not a renovated form
of the old creation. If you give a pig a
bath, it’s still a pig (and given half a chance, it will act like it). We can clean up Adam (the flesh, our sin
nature), but it’s still Adam. And Adam
is dead. Dead people don’t need a bath (no
matter how badly they stink); they need a resurrection.
Once we have been made alive, then
we can allow His life and light to grow in us…and displace the death and
darkness of our old nature.
I wish I had known this truth when
I was a pastor. I spent 14 years trying
to help people to change. They wanted
very much to change and become more like Jesus.
So did I. The problem is that
people cannot change; we’re simply not hardwired to change. If we are dead outside of Christ, we cannot
change because dead people don’t change (ok, they rot/decay, but their behavior
doesn’t improve). If we are alive in
Christ we still cannot change because the life of Christ is our source of life, and
He doesn’t change (Hebrews 13:8).
Nowhere in the Bible are we
commanded to change--because it’s impossible.
We are, however, told that we can be transformed by the renewing life of
Christ in us working from the inside-out to produce a harvest of godliness in
our attitudes and behavior (Romans 12:2).
The Greek word for “transform” is μεταμορφοω. We get our word “metamorphosis” from this
word. It means to be transformed from
one state (in this case, the state of death) to a new state (becoming alive) by
another, more powerful, form of life forcing its way from the
inside to the outside. The life of Christ is in us if
we are genuinely born again. This life has the ability to transform us and manifest itself in our behavior...if we cooperate with it.
So how do we work with God to
produce this transformation in our lives?
The simple, not to be confused
with easy, answer to this question is
that we come into intimate relationship with Jesus. Let me be clear: I am not
talking about praying a canned prayer, becoming a churchgoer, and walking in a
superficial affiliation with Jesus; I’m talking about a living, vibrant, personal,
passionate, and intimate relationship with Jesus. We need to allow Him, through the Holy
Spirit, to speak to us (through the scriptures and directly) and shine His
light into our lives. This takes courage
because, if you are like me, you won’t very much like a great deal of what you
will hear and see.
Once we become God’s home (1
Corinthians 6:19), then we can talk about doing a housecleaning. The light of God will shine into the dark
places and reveal the condition of our hearts--and then it is decision time. It’s like when you turn on a light in a room
of your home and see that the room is a mess.
We can do one of two things at this point: we can turn out the light and walk away while
trying to forget what we just saw, or we can choose to invite God in to clean
up the place.
We have the Holy Spirit, our
Helper, to do all the heavy lifting and deep cleaning with us.
Do not be fooled by
appearances. We are not alive because we
appear to be alive. And we are not alive
because we are more animated than our neighbor.
Such comparison is not a good idea (2 Corinthians 10:12b). We are alive only because we are in
relationship with God through Jesus Christ whose life indwells us in the Person
of the Holy Spirit.
If we call ourselves Christians,
but are living outside of Christ, we are no more alive than the Jews of Jesus’
day who refused to come to Him so He could give them life (John 5:39, 40).
Be brave. Dare to ask yourself the tough question, “Am
I alive in Christ, or am I a living cartoon?”
I will believe you no matter how you answer this question, but I’m not
the one you have to convince.
Responses to this article are
welcomed. You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com
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