From Death to Life

As Christians we talk about dying to something a lot.  I found out yesterday that Paul never views the body in a bad way, only the flesh.  I have realized that we don’t die to our lives, as we so much like to say, rather we die to the pseudo-life we have created.  Yet, often it feels like our false reality is really, truly life.  In our blindness we forget that You alone exist and therefore You alone are life.  As we die to what we have created, we begin to touch what You have created, we begin to live.  Christ, You have shown us what it looks like to live, but in my blindness, I sometimes look at Your life questioning how You could claim You know how to live (Matthew 11:28-30).  Then I will reason, ‘well if I lower myself, I will then be lifted up in heaven.’ But, maybe it’s not about lowering ourselves or being lifted up.  Maybe Christ taught us to serve because that’s who we are.  Maybe Christ taught us to submit to each other and to not exercise a false authority over each other because that’s what love is – love lifts up, it does not put down. Maybe that will cause us to be lifted up in heaven, or maybe submitting like that is being lifted up.  Maybe the first really are the last and maybe that begins now, not just in “heaven.”  It seems, after all, that we’re not at all dying in the sense that we think of dying, maybe we are finally living.