Who Has Life?

The other day I heard a phrase we often use in Christianity.  The person speaking said, "I gave my life to the Lord."  What he meant was the same thing we all mean when we use those words - we accepted the work that Jesus did on our behalf, acknowledged our sins, asked for forgiveness, and became a new creation in Him -  born-again.

I've heard the phrase a thousand times, but that particular day the words struck me a little differently.  When you give something to someone, you have to possess it in the first place. While we are in the body, I guess to a certain extent we own our lives.  We are the ones making decisions daily that tell our body what to do and what to say, but the "life" we have is nothing we can give to God.  He gave us the lives in our mortal bodies to begin with.

When we come into a relationship with Jesus, He gives His life to us - not the other way around!

Life is more than just the absence of physical death.  We all have heard of people who seemed to be living "the good life".  They had money, position, fame, talent, looks - everything the world thinks is required for happiness, yet they are miserable and some even take their own lives. I've known others who had little the world would envy, yet the joy that radiates from them is amazing. 

The Bible tells us that "in Him we live and move and have our being" in Acts 17:28.  The life that we have in Jesus is so much more than anything that we can gain in the natural world.  Jesus Himself said, "I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing". (John 15:5)

If we do not maintain that connection to Him, we can begin to dry up spiritually.  He promised that He would never leave us, but the choice to leave Him can be ours.  I have learned leaving Him doesn't always involve jumping back into the deep end of the sin pool.  It can be as simple as ignoring His voice or avoiding his Word.  It can just be prioritizing our wants before His will.  We will never perfectly follow Him, but we can be pursuing Him in obedience, regardless of how we feel or what circumstances surround us. Choose life!