264. Christ our Life
Colossians 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Christ is our Life: this is a promise repeated in Scripture. This Gospel Promise must be repeated for us often because it is easy to forget and ignore. Christ is our Life! Without Christ I am dead and I have no life. I naturally do not want to hear that, but when I hear and understand I rejoice to believe it. It is humbling to recognize that I have no real life in myself, but I am so proud that I think I have life, that I am alive by myself, that I live by my own strength and brains, that God owes me because I live, that I have rights just by being alive. Pride says, “I did it;” humility (and faith) says, “God did it. ”Which do you think is true?
Christ is my life; to live is Christ. I enjoy living because of Jesus. God alone is the source of my life; nothing else. I am living that life now, but That Life is clouded and darkened and suppressed by Sin and Death, which is equally, and even totally, me. I live both in life and in death, in me and in Christ both at the same time. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.
But there will come a Day when Christ will appear; when He appears then our real life will also appear, for it will no longer be covered over with Sin and Death. When Sin and Death is gone the only thing left for me is Life. My true life will appear when Christ appears.
The promise also includes the truth that I will appear with Christ in glory when He comes. When Christ come again all believers in Christ, dead or alive, will meet Him in the air and come to earth with Him in glory, and Eternal Judgment will commence.
This promise is already: Christ is our life. This promise is not yet: our life will appear whenChrist appears and we will appear with Him. We have this certain hope; meanwhile, while we wait in faith, Christ is our life and Jesus lives in me. Believe it or not, you and I look like Christ. We are, indeed, “little Christs.”