Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
~C.S. “Jack” Lewis, in ‘The Weight of Glory’
That’s what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we’re going in our new grace-sovereign country. Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer captive to sin’s demands! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in His life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, He took sin down with Him, but alive He brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your native tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did.
~paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Romans 6
Oh beloved, it is true.
We live in a world that is drenched with temptations to indulge our flesh. However, in our own fallen state – living in that flesh as Christians – we often fail because we take on worldviews that doom us. We are either so Victorian that we suppress His Victory in us and through us, or so Licentious that our rebellion drowns our Liberty.
We partake of the tingle of sex, forgetting it is the power of creation passed on to us, His children.
We drown in the cesspools of post-modern politics and “news,” dismissing the fact that we are already citizens of a Kingdom which will have no end.
We drape ourselves in the fuzzy and ragged blanket of chemicals, oblivious to the royal robes in which He has clothed us.
We chase after power, forgetting that we have nothing to fear, and that He has already given us everything.
We choke on the waves of fear that crash in on our lives, refusing to embrace our destiny in Him.
We seek “likes” on our social media gossamer threads, heedless while an eternal weight of glory awaits those who will wait on Him.
We simmer in isolation, losing sight of the intimacy that comes from solitude in His Presence.
We chase after honor and recognition, refusing to believe that we are already fully known – and Loved.
We choose anger over mercy.
We grasp impatience over waiting.
We lust rather than Love.
We exist in time – forgetting we already Live in Eternity.
Can we see it?
If we want freedom, we actually need to hear it.
In our burial with Jesus Christ; in being baptized into His death, we were given the opportunity to walk out of the prison of our own self-regard. But our problem is that the old man we were, refuses to listen and yield the field of our souls. And further, in our years of listening only to our own whiny noises, we can often forget that The Voice Who made the worlds is whispering to the newly created inner man we have become – beckoning us to the Freedom we already have.
It really is a question of listening.
Oh yes, the old man will squeal and yelp, and take every opportunity to exploit our pain. But really, the only thing the old man will get us, is more of the same.
However, if we will allow ourselves to listen, and to reckon it true, we can begin to experience the reality of The Truth. Our old man “ex-ists,” but the New Creation we are Lives not from contingency and circumstance – it is given its being by The One Who is the sheer act of ‘to be’ Himself.
Said more simply: The flesh is a set of temporal handcuffs. It is a yoke that binds us to time, and dooms us to a predictable, and well-earned death. But, the New Creation we are in Christ is an eternal freedom, granted by Freedom Himself. We live now beyond death and in a realm where the frontiers of His Love are boundless. It will take us forever to even begin to begin to begin to understand Who He Is, and who we are, in Him.
So, are you listening to your flesh? It happens. But, if you really listen to its grunts, you will begin to recognize the predictable – and actually boring – lies it tells.
Tonight is your night. Listen to The Voice that has united us to Himself – and to the real men we are becoming.
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
~ C.S Lewis, in ‘Mere Christianity’
