This was a quote I heard yesterday on a radio show called "Let My People Think" hosted by Ravi Zacharias (www.rzim.org). I couldn't help BUT think: How true, how true, how incredibly and awesomely true this is...
There are many who are totally lost right now who do not even give a second (or first) thought to God's Presence NOW; and as part of that Reality, to why He even bothered to MANifest as a man who lived and died as we do, minus the horrid disease of sin coursing through his holy blood. And probably even more amazingly: why the supernatural rising from the dead? Why? But for those who don't think that these questions (and answers) are relevant or critical to their lives: they are sorely and tragically and FATALLY mistaken. The fact that God did not come to make bad people good, but dead people alive applies...to...us...all.
God did not come to make bad people good...
Although one result of being made spiritually alive is that behaviors, attitudes, and perspectives may gradually seem to be becoming kinder, gentler, and more in line with moral and ethical truths (Galatians 5:22-23; although the standard for these and other Jesus-like qualities are plummeting even as I type), that was not the reason Jesus came. Even Jesus Himself, the One Who was tempted time and again but never turned His eyes or heart away from God (John 5:19-20), rebuked those who referred to Him as "good": As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone." (Mark 10:17-18) So if even Jesus would not accept this description, why would it be thought that God's purpose was to make us the very thing that even the Son of God would not consider Himself: "good"? This has become a misconception that has caused many problems amongst Believers and non-Believers alike: for those who have actually received the New Life imparted by the Holy Spirit (second part of quote), the idea that perhaps they should now be "good" (but find themselves still struggling with "the bad" within: even the devoted Apostle Paul cried out about that! Romans 7:18-19, 24-25) leaves them trying too hard to put on a face, perhaps feeling defeated, and looking more and more on themselves and how they appear than on the shining Face of God. For those who are currently rejecting God's offer of a New Spiritual and Eternal Life, they, in their mortality, can look on Believers and shout "Hypocrites!" when they see the still-existing "bad behaviors," thus giving them that much more excuse to continue in their deadness.
But...
God did not come to make bad people good...
...God came to make dead people alive!
Remember Pinocchio? I always love referring to this! (Plus I have a special relative who happens to love the story of Pinocchio...). Pinocchio was a wooden puppet...dead in essence one could say...and quite mischievous! But then due to his sacrificial love for and rescue of his maker, Geppetto, he is transformed into a Real Live human...given Real Life instead of dead wood inside. THAT is what God came to do: although it was by HIS sacrificial love for US that we have been rescued from being dead, rotting "wood" (Job 13:28; Ephesians 4:22) and given a Life that is promised to become increasingly beautiful (2 Corinthians 3:17-18; 1 John 3:2 - by HIS beauty) and is ultimately Eternal (truly living in His Presence: in heaven AND here too). Wow, that's a big difference from thinking that God came just to polish us up some.
Dead wood can never be polished; it must be replaced.
Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
Oh if only EVERYONE COULD HEAR AND UNDERSTAND THIS!!! Oh if only I could truly "hear" and digest and live in this Reality all of the time!!! THIS IS GOD TALKING! And although there are many beautiful analogies throughout His Word that describe the process of making dead people alive (scales falling from eyes, the blind can see, circumcision of the heart, a second birth), this PROMISE right here is what reveals outright what God intends to and actually does through the Life of His Son Jesus (once believed and received by someone). This is no metaphor here for being made a good person...this is an offered action on God's part to be given the chance to be made an ALIVE person: yes, one who more and more DESIRES the good, LOVES the good, and who is ultimately given the ability to TRULY and SELFLESSLY carry out the good...but TRULY ALIVE...not just dead and "good."
One can disbelieve, but that does not make it untrue. We are all born dead (Ephesians 2:1-5; Colossians 2:11-15). Kicking a little and screaming, yes; but spiritually dead. Bob Dylan sings it correctly when he exclaims:
I was blinded by the devil
Born already ruined
Stone-cold dead
As I stepped out of the womb
By His grace I have been touched
By His word I have been healed
By His hand I have been delivered
By His spirit I Have been sealed...
I've been saved
By the blood of the lamb ("Saved" from the album Saved, 1980)
To say God came in human form to live, die, but then be brought back to life simply to make us good people is so underestimating, minimizing, and actually tragic that it almost defies belief...but this IS what many think...if they think about it at all....
...No, God came to make spiritually dead people (which is all of us) alive. In fact, He came to do the very thing that HE did thousands of years ago: He came so that we may ourselves emerge from the tomb of our dead, rotting natural selves ("wood") into New Life - His Resurrected Life-in-us: one that is defined by Perfect Love, Perfect Justice, and Perfect Truth...and that is Eternal and Forever with Him.
"For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes...Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life." (John 5: 21, 24)
Jesus was raised from the dead so that now we can be too.
In His Wonderful, Transformative, and Life-Giving Name,
Terri
Man of the Tombs
(PLEASE hear this song which essentially describes all that was shared above; and, in one way or another, applies to us all)
(PLEASE hear this song which essentially describes all that was shared above; and, in one way or another, applies to us all)
