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© 2024, Life Connection
International, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
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"Christ is life." What does that mean? Well, we need to go back to the beginning to find out. In the beginning, God created everything with His words. He spoke the world into being. He created Adam and Eve and gave them a choice, life or death. Adam and Eve chose death over life when they depended upon themselves instead of upon God. God sent Jesus to the earth to rescue us and give us a choice again. Now, we can choose Jesus as our life.
What does it mean that Jesus is our life? He died to free us from our sins and to give us His life. Jesus is the Lord over the heavens and the earth. He holds all things together by the power of His Word.
Do you want to experience Jesus as your life? The way to experience Jesus in this way is through identifying with His death and resurrection. Resurrection means rising from the dead. What does it mean to "identify" with someone? Our identity is who we are. Our old identity was "sinner." Jesus died to pay for our sins (past, present, and future) and then He rose again. When we identify with Jesus and His death, we understand that our old sinner person died with Him. We are resurrected in His new life. That is what baptism portrays. Baptism is like a play where we act out our death to sin and resurrection to life. Jesus conquered death! When we are in Him we have His eternal life...now! Jesus now lives His life through us. This is the way real life is lived.
Now, use your imagination, as we journey back through time to look at the Life Connection Story "Paul Part 4."
(Story adapted from the New Testament books written by the Apostle Paul, the Gospels, and specifically Acts 19:23 to 21:14.)
My name is Paul. I helped take the good news about Jesus to Europe. Churches started. I wrote letters to the churches and to my friends. I am excited to share with you how God became my very life.
As I traveled from city to city, telling people about Jesus, I met a man who worked with silver. He and his partners made statues that people worshipped in the temple. I told the people about the real God. I explained that God was real, not a man-made statue. Some people believed in Jesus and stopped buying the statues. The men were afraid that they might lose their business; they grabbed two of my friends and ran to a theater. The whole city followed them and began shouting. The shouting went on for two hours. Finally, the city clerk calmed the people down and told them to go home and my friends were not hurt.
The men did not know or care that Jesus is life. They were spiritually dead. They did not know they needed to choose between life and death. Jesus defeated death and won the victory when He died on the cross and rose again. Death was shown to be powerless. The person who loves his life on this earth will give up real life. The person who trusts in Jesus' life in this world will have true life forever.
In another town, I was speaking to a room full of believers one evening. Around midnight, a young man sitting in the window went to sleep and fell three stories to the ground. He was dead. I ran outside, threw myself on him, put my arms around him, and said, "He's alive!" The believers knew that it was God's power that did this miracle, not mine. Then we all went back upstairs and talked until early morning.
Everywhere I went someone wanted to hurt me because of what I said about who Jesus was-especially in the city of Jerusalem. I told my friends that I must go to Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit impressed upon me that troubles and jail awaited me, but my life was not my concern. I wanted to complete my mission of telling people about Jesus.
The believers prayed for me, as I got ready to go. A prophet named Agabus borrowed my belt and used it to tie his hands and feet. He said, "The Holy Spirit says that the man who owns this belt will be tied up like this." The believers begged me not to go to Jerusalem. I told them I was ready to be tied up and to die for the Lord Jesus. Jesus was my life.
Our old life died with Christ on the cross. We do not live in our own strength anymore-we have Christ's strength living in us. Of course, we still physically live in our body, but spiritually we live by faith in the Son of God. God gave us a new life in Him. God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavens.
If you are a believer, will you choose to believe that Christ is your life? Will you trust Him to meet all of your needs and not put your trust in other people or things or money? If so, pray the following prayer to God:
Dear God, I am Your child, but I have been using people, achievements, and possessions to try to meet my needs. This is flesh. Flesh can only bring death. This doesn't satisfy me! Thank You that You meet all my needs. I want You to live through me. Thank You that You created me to be loved by You. I want to experience Your love and to let Your love flow out from me onto others.
Use Acts 19:23 to 21:14 and the Life Connection Story. They will help you complete your Life Connection Response.
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