SpOL

SpOL-075 FAITH – SEEING THE UNSEEN

We are about six weeks away from celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus. Two things happened to us when Jesus died and rose again. The first is that in him we died. And the second is that in him we rose.

The apostle Paul puts it this way: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Col. 3:1-4 NIV).

When Christ died on the cross for our sins, all humanity, including you and me, died there with him in a spiritual sense. Christ died as our substitute, in our place. But not only as our substitute, he died and rose also as our representative. That means that when he died and rose, we died and rose with him. It means that the Father accepts us because we are in Christ, his beloved Son. Jesus represents us before the Father in everything we do, so that it is no longer us doing it, but Christ in us.

In Jesus, we have been set free from sin’s power and its penalty. And in Jesus, we have a new life with him and the Father through the Holy Spirit.

The Bible calls this being “born again” or “born from above.” We have been born from above by the power of the Spirit to live an abundant life in a new spiritual dimension.

According to this verse we read, as well as several others, we dwell spiritually with Christ in a heavenly realm. The old you has died and the new you has been made alive. You are now a new creation in Christ.

The exciting truth of being a new creation in Christ is that we are now identified with him and he with us. We should never think of ourselves as apart from Christ. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God. We are thoroughly identified with Christ. Our life is in him. He is our life. We are one with him. We dwell with him.

We’re not simply earth dwellers; we’re also heaven dwellers. I like to describe it as living in two time zones – the temporal, physical one, as well as the eternal, heavenly one.

Now, it is easy to say these things. It’s harder to see them. But they are true, even though we may be dealing with all of the daily problems we face.

Paul described it this way in 2 Corinthians 4:18 (NIV): “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

And that is just the point of it all. This is what faith is. When we see this new reality of who we are in Christ, it changes how we think about everything, including whatever we may be going through at the moment.

When we see ourselves as dwelling in Christ, it makes all the difference in how we’re able to deal with the affairs of this present life.

I’m Joseph Tkach, speaking of life.