Full of Life

Have you ever been or felt sucked dry? We want to be full of life. There are a couple ways…

John 15:4 - Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

If you’re sawing a tree branch, the end looks fine for a couple of hours… but it’s been cut off and it will start to die. They’ll be worth nothing more than firewood.

2 Corinthians 4:16 - Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.

The outward man is the physical body. It’s easy to renew it because we can sense when we’re hungry, tired, etc. It’s our inward man that is the challenge to understand. The inward man is our spirit (not God’s Spirit). We can’t see it and we can’t physically touch it… it’s beyond our five senses.

When you receive Jesus you also receive the Holy Spirit and your inner man (your spirit) starts being renewed. With eternal life you get a boost in your spirit. You also have better communication with God.

A power tool or appliance stops working when it’s not plugged in. Plug it back in and you’re good to go again. Get plugged back into God and let Him restore the power, the function, the effectiveness, the usefulness.

Every cell in your body communicates with other cells in your body. When that stops, things stop working. It’s the same with God. Stay hooked into the vine and keep that channel open to ensure that the communication stays going.

Communication flows in both directions. We can’t expect it to go just one way. We often get caught up just talking to God and forget to listen. Many times that listening means spending time in Scripture absorbing that.

2 Corinthians 4:17,18 - For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

How can you see things that aren’t physical?

The first organ that forms in a baby in the womb is the ears. It’s the last organ that keeps working when a person dies. Is it just a coincidence? Or does faith come from hearing? The Bible says it does.

2 Corinthians 5:1-8 - For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.

We need to pay attention to the inward man far more than the outward man. The inward man will live forever while the outward man will perish.

Many things that are not seen are eternal. We need to pay attention to these eternal things.

We have been called into God’s everlasting kingdom. We are everlasting beings.

How are you seeing things? Are you focused on the physical or the spiritual?

Once we’re with God we’ll never be separated from His presence ever again.

If God wakes you up or shakes you He’s trying to get your attention.

2 Corinthians 5:17-19 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

It would be nice to see our spirit in the mirror. We would be able to look past our physical and see who we are inside. We could see the perfection God brings us, but we could also see where we need work. The good news is that God has made us a new creation.

When we’re baptized into Jesus Christ, who does God see? He sees Jesus. We need to get an image of ourselves like God sees. That will help restore our spirit with joy and purpose.

We also need to keep our eyes on Jesus. He is the author and finisher of our souls. He’s started us on our journey, and He will be sure to finish it. We will be faultless, without spot or blemish as we stand before the throne.

We shouldn’t see ourselves better than others… just to see ourselves spiritually.

Ephesians 1:18 - the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

1 Corinthians 2:14 - But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 3:1 - And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.

Hebrews 5:11-12 - of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.