"Life"

My alarm went off at 3:30 AM and it seemed like I had just gotten to sleep. I was meeting with some others to do some early morning trout fishing. It was very cool out and dark. It made me wonder what I was doing. During our drive I thought to myself, "Why am I doing this?" As far as I was concerned, it was an "ungodly" time to be headed out!!

After arriving and putting on my waders I stood in the water, waiting for an alarm to indicate the start of fishing. A cold shiver hit me as I stood in the cold water and my mind shifted back to being in bed. The alarm sounded and I made my first cast. Within seconds I felt it! A slight movement of my line in my hand. I set the hook and the fight was on.

As we traveled home, I reflected on the morning. I thought about the whole and then it hit me. When I caught that first trout, everything changed. My thoughts, my desire made a complete turnabout. Why? Because there was life! There was life on the other end of my line and it affected my behavior and attitude.

My mind shifted to the Scripture: "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins." (Eph. 2:1) One doesn't realize how dead they are until they come into contact with life. Those "living" around us that we speak with, work with and enjoy our humanness with, the majority are dead spiritually! It is natural. "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love in which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)." (Eph. 2:4-5)

Life comes by our union with Christ. When the life of God comes in, it changes every thing about us. Your thoughts, attitudes and desires are no longer what they were. The things that were important while dead are no longer important in life! That's what life does. You don't have to tell people you are a different person or changed. Life is evident and different from the animation of those living around us!

"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." (John 1:4) Jesus attracted people because the dead were attracted to life. His life became the light that brought people to Him. His life was the light that created the ability to see things for what they are. Only Jesus and in Jesus can one possess that life.

Physical life is precious to us. We do every thing we can to preserve it. We take every avenue available to hold to that life. What about real, spiritual life? The life that works from God in those in Christ, taking us to eternity? Until we recognize our deadness because of sin, we won't have a strong desire to see and come into life. It was Jesus who proclaimed: "...I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly." (John 10:10).