February 8, 2010
“He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! The he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.” Ephesians 2:5-6 The Message
The Made-Alive Fellowship …
Jesus isn’t looking for volunteers. He’s calling a community of God-fashioned men and women to live a new way of life. It is entirely new .. formed by His life .. and filled with His life. This is the resurrection life He offers .. once dead .. now alive. This is the restored life He offers .. once trying to live with all the pieces .. now learning to live in His wholeness. This is the renewed life He offers .. once bound up and suffocating on the inside .. now grace-freed and breathing through His life. You can’t make up this kind of life. You can’t sustain it by your own resources. You can only accept His offer. He’ll meet you in the most ordinary acts and unseen moments of this day. The truth about Jesus is that He just wants to live out His life through you today. He wants to do this in every single area of your life. He’s not in a hurry as you count hurry. He’s in the reproducing business of forming His character .. His life .. and His Spirit in you in such a way that you no longer have to “try” and live this life. God loves it when we give up trying and tire out pretending to live on the outside when the inside (of us) is worn out .. and burned out on “Christ-rules”. It isn’t the life He created for you. His life is entirely new .. a new way of thinking .. a new way of loving .. and a new way of living in the broken world you live in. You’ve been called into the Made-Alive Fellowship. All you have to do is “nothing”. All Jesus wants to do is everything. He knows exactly where to go to work in you. And it only takes a moment to accept His offer to fashion your life into the life of His Son today …
” .. And then take on an entirely new way of life — a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.” Ephesians 4:24 The Message
Ken Chester: Grace-Gripped is sent M-F to God-Fashioned Followers of Jesus Christ and friends of Priority One (ken@priorityone.org)
