The Walking Dead

2000 years ago, a man unlike any other chose love and death. He chose to carry a cross on which he would die. He chose to endure hours of unrelenting torture, his face beaten beyond recognition, blood pouring into his eyes from thorns shoved into his skull. He allowed nails to pound through his hands and feet and bind him to that cross.

Because He-who-was-Life chose death, we-who-are-dead can choose life. God-breathed, full of life and light and love and joy and goodness LIFE.

Most of us have that something inside. That place that stirs, that place where the ears of our hearts prick subtly at the sound of something different. We long for something more than just THIS. This every day, hum drum, anxiety and depression ridden, barely getting from one day to the next kind of life.

But even though it is so plainly stated that Jesus is the answer to the longing, most reject Him. They think the life He offers is full of rules and self deprivation. They don’t understand, and rightly so, that His way equals the best kind of life. If you grow up never seeing snow, but hear about it, how much does someone else’s experience give you the wonder of snow? But when you experience it for yourself…suddenly the child inside awakens because snow is magical, especially that first time, and you suddenly understand why people love it. The same goes for someone who has never seen the ocean or the mountains or a giant redwood tree or a sudden thunderstorm racing across the prairie. Until something is experienced, it can’t truly be known.

Life from Jesus has to be experienced in order to be truly known. It won’t work the other way around. Knowing with the head but not experiencing with the heart means religion, rules, and ultimately guilt and failure. Experiencing God means life, grace, and purpose infused with hope.

Jesus didn’t choose to die only for you to go to heaven someday after you die. Salvation doesn’t start at the end of this life; it starts the moment you choose Life. Let go of the old, and let your new heart beat a strong and steadfast rhythm.

Sometimes even after choosing Life, we continue to live like the walking dead, still bound by lies and deception. Our thoughts churn and bounce back and forth from one lie to the next like a tennis match.

Have you ever found yourself unable to move?  Terrified at what comes next?  Completely sure that things will never change?  Believing that you are worthless, that you can’t accomplish anything in this life?  Fighting a war in your head just to be able to function, to make it through a day, to make it look like everything is fine?

If any of those ring true, know that this is not the life you’ve been given. This is not the kind of Life Jesus died to give you. Those lies are empowered by you alone. Your words, what your thoughts say as well as what you speak aloud, have power.  What you say and declare over yourself directly impacts whether you are walking dead or alive.

If you have chosen life in Jesus, you are a child of God. You are declared righteous because God sees you through Christ’s accomplishment. You can rest in His finished work.  Darkness has been defeated.  You can live from victory.  The struggle is real, but the victory has been won. You have God’s strength, His truth and Word and the “mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).  Every problem in your life, no matter how small or how great, has a solution in Christ and His Word.

It is the Great Romance, God choosing to give everything to bring us back to the place where we can be close to Him and close to His heart! Only, it’s about more than just God and us. It’s about God and them too. Those-who-do-not-know, who are walking dead and walking blind. The only way they will experience God’s love is if we take the experience to them.

And the only way we can do that is to first come to truly know and experience that love, not just in our heads, but true and real in the very core of who we are.

You are precious, wonderful, perfected in Christ, and set apart for a beautiful, hopeful reason.  You are here on purpose, made for a purpose. It’s worth trusting and walking by faith to get out of the mud and the stagnant air and see the amazing things God wants to show you. Things about life, love, His character, and things about yourself.

Eternal salvation begins now; don’t wait till you die to be fully alive.  Pray this prayer below every day, every hour if need be.  Jesus chose love and death so we could choose Love and Life. Trust him. Know him. Love him. Share his love.

prayer

Father in Heaven,

I believe that I am Your child.  That I am holy and precious to You because Your Son made me this way.  I believe that Jesus is my salvation, and that all the death and darkness in me went to the grave with Him.  I believe that I can live a life of victory over darkness, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.  I am exactly the way You want me to be.  I declare that I am walking alive, fully alive, in Christ, and that the enemy’s lies no longer have any power over me.  You, Father, You are good, always.  You care about every thought I have, everything I suffer through, and you want more for me.  You have more for me.  You want to prosper me, to give me a hope and a future.  That hope and future is found in Christ and I believe that my life matters, and that there’s a life full of blessing being worked together by your mighty hands.  I have a purpose.  I want to live in Your will, in Your hands, and know Your love so fully that it overflows on those around me naturally.  I want to know Your heart for others.  Thank You for all the good in my life, every good and perfect thing comes from You and You have always faithfully provided for me.  You are my Papa God, my Daddy God, and I love you.  AMEN.