Buried Alive!

"I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Matthew 28:20 (NLT)

Life isn’t easy, is it? But shouldn’t it be? Isn’t that what Jesus died to give us? An abundant and joy-filled life? Oh, He didn’t say we wouldn’t have problems, He just said He would be our way of escape. He said He would never leave us alone, He would not only be with us, but He would live in us. The Holy Spirit came to earth when Jesus left, to fill the heart of every believer.

We battle with our flesh every day as it wants to go one way and Jesus is calling us to come to Him. Jesus gets buried alive under our heavy coat of flesh. The very same flesh that we claim has been crucified with Christ. We claim it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and He does, but He gets lost in the "rubble" that we’re not willing to discard. The rubble that hangs on us like a heavy winter coat. It’s comfortable, we’re used to it and we’re not quite ready to be done with it...

Jesus told us how life would be with Him.  In the Beatitudes in Matthew five, He says our lives will be blessed when we realize our need for Him. What more do we want in life? He wants that for us, because He has experienced it. He lived this life with His Father inside of Him, directing Him and helping Him. He now wants to do the same for us, if we would only allow Him to.

But we’re afraid and then we miss out on the joy that He offers! The joy that can be ours when He comes to live in us. Not to condemn us, and not to be hidden inside us, but to help us take off this thick coat of flesh that inhibits us emotionally and spiritually, and live this life fully. Not as prisoners of the enemy, but as free children of God!

We cannot do this with human hands. Without surrender and submission, without God’s uncovering, Jesus will remain buried alive in our lives. We can still hear Him, He can still work through us, we can still be saved and going to Heaven, but we will miss the very best part of our relationship with Him, the reality of the intimacy of His indwelling presence.

If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it.
But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life.
Matthew 16:25 (NLT)

The Holy Spirit is our comforter and helper. He knows how much we need Him. He knows how heavy life can be. This flesh can be a pain to deal with. It gets in the way when we need to be fully available to the life of Christ working in and through us. Jesus is the only One that can rid us of the flesh that hinders us, while we are still living in it. We have to get past the fear of dying to ourselves and realize our flesh is not serving us well anymore when it gets in the way of what the Living Christ inside of us wants to do in and through our lives.