based 1 corinthians 15

mystery and victory

I can do nothing with out you. Your ways are not my ways and your thoughts are not my thoughts. You are beautiful and I know that you will do more than I could ask or imagine if I surrender myself to you. Here I am. I’m sorry I want control so badly. I’m sorry I don’t know how to trust you and I am anxious about where I am. I don’t want to take my anxiety that grades and sports and relationships gave me and transfer that same anxiety to you and to me as your daughter and think that you are unhappy with me or unsatisfied or that I am ruining your ability to advance your kingdom. You love me. You use me. You strengthen me. And through you, I can bring glory to you. You are light and I am wrapped in you so I have the same light. You are love and your pour your love into me so I can pour out just as you can. All that Jesus is, I am too because of the work that he has done. Every day lord, I must come to confession again and say lord, I know I have really been hoarding my life today, keeping it from you, or I know I am falling into legalism, or I know that I have believed lies instead of truth and picked other things and used people to make myself worthwhile and used Christianity for my own gains and been unsatisfied with all the loveliness you have offered me. And I am sorry lord. And I know lord that this typing words into a page or speaking to you or thinking to you should not accomplish soul healing, but it does because you are good and you can take what is sown, my words, my offering to you, that are dead and bring them to life.

What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown in a natural body; it is raised in a spiritual body. I have borne the image of the man of dust, I shall, we shall, bear the image of the man of heaven who is Christ.

I know that your word is good and when your word is sown in me, Christ is sown in me. And when Christ is sown in me, the Spirit is sown in me. And the Spirit accomplishes the work so that I may be changed from death to life, from the man of dust to the man of heaven. Bearing the image of Christ.

This is all your work. None of it is mine. There is nothing for me to add to this work, you have completed it and continue to do it daily. Victory is through Christ, given to us. What a gift. We can rest. We can joyfully work, joining you. The perishable cannot inherit the imperishable. No matter how great that perishable is. No matter how many inner city kids are known, how many grades are improved, how many cities are changed, how many times I tell someone the gospel-it will not move me from perishable to imperishable. BUT as Paul says we shall all be changed. The dead will be raised imperishable. We put it on. The perishable put on the imperishable. But God has given us the victory through Christ.