New Life in Christ is at the heart of the Christian Gospel. So many have never been taught how to live from it.
I believe that many modern Christians live with an inner hollowness and dissatisfaction in their relationship with Christ that they usually keep hidden.
Often, I think, we even hide it from ourselves.
Religious culture teaches us to do that. Like the townspeople fawning over the emperor’s new clothes, we pretend all is well because we’re afraid that truth will break the illusion, and then what? We might find that we, too, are naked. But if we could muster the courage to be honest, many of us would have to say that we often live with an unspoken sense of “Is this it? Is this all there is to ‘new life in Christ?’ Shouldn’t it be more than this? More than just being forgiven? More than just showing up to church, writing a tithe check, or voting the “right” way?”
Is all THAT really what Jesus meant by “life abundant?” But we instinctively know it’s not and that there must be a reason for this hunger and the subsequent hole that exists within.
And there is.
When a heart opens to receive Jesus, his Spirit is deposited within. This completely new life, powered by the Spirit of God, is what II Corinthians 5:17 describes when it says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” In most modern Christian contexts, this new life is understood only in the context of us experiencing Jesus’ forgiveness. We were dead in sin, the scriptures say, but because we received Jesus’ forgiveness, we’re no longer dead in sin but alive, so all things have "become new."
Rarely, if ever, are we told that this new life also has a hunger and an inherent arc to it. That this life aches to go somewhere, and somewhere very specific; towards transformation in Christ. We’re never told that this new life thrives under very different conditions than what feeds our natural, fallen humanity, and so we mistakenly believe we can use human means to generate spiritual results. We aren’t taught the pivotal truth about the nature of this new life, so we live outside its reality, caught between how things are and what our heart says this life should be: more full, more rich, more real.
In the monologue at the end of the iconic couple’s movie The Notebook, the main character, Noah, poses a question to Allie, the love of his life who he’d lost some years earlier but recently reconnected with. In the scene, Allie is wrestling with the decision to stay with Noah or return to the safe, expected life that her parents wanted for her. Noah’s question is poignant. He says,
“Answer one question for me. Forget about me and your fiancé and your parents for a minute. Forget about what you should do. What about you? What do you want, Allie? What. Do. You. Want?”
It’s a profound and powerful question.
This scene stands as a beacon and spiritual parallel for all who have come to faith in Christ but who find themselves in the gulf between the old life and the new, sensing there’s more, but having no idea how to get at it.
In this crucible, so many of us choose to put on a smile, push down the ache, and solider on, making the best of things in our religious contexts. Others find external causes like culture war topics or religious engagement in politics to serve as a salve for the scarcity of intimacy and reality within. Still others lose hope, give up, and simply walk away, having not found that reality they were seeking.
Thankfully, there is another way. There is the Way. The way of the remnant, of the ancient Christian mystics, the early disciples, and the great saints and sages throughout history. It’s the way of the Kingdom of God, of transformation in Christ, apprenticeship to him, and guidance in how to actually live in and nurture this new life we’ve received.
Many of us were not given a map or a guide to lead us when we first believed, so we might conclude that neither exists, which is why so many of us stay stuck.
But they do. Scarce as they may be in the average church, they are accessible.
This is what the remnant discovers when their heart’s cry for “more” in their relationship with God becomes so compelling and unbearable that they cannot help but abandon all their failed religious mechanisms and set out on a journey to find the answers, bushwhacking at first, until they gain the Road and the companions who can help them walk it.
As it turns out, Noah’s question is also yours to answer:
What. Do. You. Want?
If it’s the journey of the few that your heart longs for, there’s good news. There really is a map to follow and fellow travelers to share that journey with you.
All you have to do is choose.
So…
What. Do. You. Want?
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