11 - Living with Christ | Uniting Heaven and Earth
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
In Christ, we have already been raised with him and are living a new life – not just in the future, but here and now, through faith. “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. (...) For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:1–4).
Originally, God created humanity to act as a channel of His love on earth and to pass this love on to all of creation. Through self-deception, this connection was lost. Humanity was “born dead” – separated from the source of life. Since then, we have been unconsciously bound to people rather than to God. From this old, dead identity, only works of sin and self-destruction can arise.
God has created the solution in Jesus Christ, the second Adam. Through his death, the old life died, through his resurrection, the new life came into being. Whoever dies with Christ through faith and rises with him receives a new identity. The Holy Spirit imparts this life and writes the new reality into our hearts.
Paul calls on us to put to death the members of the old self: sexual immorality, impurity, shameful passions, evil desires, and greed. This also includes anger, rage, malice, and slander. All of this belongs to the old nature and must be put off. Instead, we are to put on the new self, which is being renewed in the image of God: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and above all, love, which is the bond of perfection. Where Christ is all and in all, there is peace and gratitude.
Many of us still live in frustration and in the old nature because we look to the earthly rather than to the heavenly. The liberating truth is this: our true life is already hidden with Christ in God. We already live now, through faith, as it will be in heaven. Heaven and earth are united within us when we act out of this new life and pass on God’s love. This and more will be explored in depth in the eleventh part of the series “Uniting Heaven and Earth.”
