How do you dry your hair after you’ve washed it? I’m one of those who throws my hair forward over my head and hangs upside down, blowing my hair wildly with a hair dryer until it is mostly dry. That usually goes fine, other than a few knots that form as my hair is whipped wildly in the hot wind. Right at the end, I flick myself right-way-up, and then need to finish off the final touches while looking in the mirror. Trouble is, my hairdryer plugs into the wall a number of meters away from the nearest mirror, and so I will stretch the cord as far as it can go, straining to see my reflection. Regularly, I find myself peering down the barrel of the dryer, wondering why it has stopped blowing. Has the element burned out? Did I bump the switch? Why do I suddenly have no power? Inevitably, the hairdryer has pulled out of the power socket at the wall, and I need to push the plug back in to the source.
You’d think I’d get it after all these years. The cycle should be predictable: I notice I don’t have what it takes to get the work done… I’ve lost power. I look around and wonder, what’s happened? I examine the elements of my life, even though nothing has changed. And then I realise… I’ve been straining so far and so hard, I’ve pulled myself right out of his power.
In this blog series we’re asking the question, what is killing you?
Eternal things can kill you if you are not united with the life of Christ.
But God still loved us with such great love. He is so rich in compassion and mercy. Even when we were dead and doomed in our many sins, he united us into the very life of Christ and saved us by his wonderful grace! He raised us up with Christ the exalted One, and we ascended with him into the glorious perfection and authority of the heavenly realm, for we are now co-seated as one with Christ!
Come with me for a moment - I want to show you something. Come with me out of the heat of the relentless sun and into a quiet, dark place. It is a cave. The light outside has blinded your eyes - give them a moment to adjust.
Can you see it? The shrouded figure of a human body lying on the floor. In the cold silence you can hear the absence of life; the stillness of breath not breathed. We wait.
Can you feel it? The temperature has dropped as a breeze brushes your face. Your skin is tingling. There is a thickness to the air. And then- there is a silent explosion of power! You hear nothing, you see nothing. And then you realise: there is the deafening sound of a breath breathed in… and the chest of the body lying on the floor rises, and falls.
It was just a moment in history, the day the Spirit of God entered the tomb where Jesus’ body lay. There would have been children playing nearby; men and women going about their never-ending chores, oblivious to what was happening a stone’s throw away. No dramatic soundtrack gave those within earshot a sense of what was happening.
There Jesus’ body lay - so much promise, with no power to make it live. And then… the Spirit of God comes upon him and in one jolt, like a heart defibrillator, Jesus’ body jerks and his lungs fill with breath… never to die again! He is the water that we drink to never thirst again. He is the breath that we breathe to never die again. I wonder how many of us truly realise the power that was made available to us in that quiet moment in history, and how many of us realise our potential to access that power.
I pray that you will continually experience the immeasurable greatness of God’s power made available to you through faith. Then your lives will be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through you! This is the mighty power that was released when God raised Christ from the dead and exalted him over every realm of power in existence!
He is the breath that we breathe to never die again.
And he alone is the leader and source of everything needed in the church. And now we, his church, are his body on the earth and that which fills him who is being filled by it!
Did you see it? We are his body! When we accept his life, our spirits become resurrected, to never die again! When we are united to this life, we are already co-seated in our eternal place! We must be led by our spirits, that are united to life, and not by the parts of us that are straining and striving, but are destined to die.
Are you looking around at the elements of your life, wondering why you don’t have what it takes to get the job done? Are you lacking power? Have your mind and body and soul taken the lead again, striving and stretching beyond where your spirit has led them, eventually pulling you right out from your life source?
I wake particularly early this morning. I find a quiet, dark place in the cool of the predawn.
And I wait.
And then I feel it. The thickness of the air. The tingling of my skin. His breath! And I catch it.
**Scriptures taken from Ephesians 1 & 2 (TPT)