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Life in Space
We humans have always imagined a vast "space" world exists somewhere in the universe where beings like us would be capable of travelling huge distances and performing superhuman feats. Of course, we have always smiled at these dreams of space-fiction as simply figments of our imagination. Even if we are beginning to probe the breathtaking spaces of our solar system at speeds which appear to lift us beyond our human limitations, yet man himself remains burdened with his own human limitations however much he dreams of liberation.
But There is Such a World!
That is the startling truth! Our Creator made us with free wills, foresaw what a mess we would make of ourselves and rectified it in His Son's death; then he gave us about 70 years on this planet to see the mess and choose his remedy. At this moment, in timeless-spaceless there exists an unspoilt version of you that is free from anxious wrinkles, disappointed cynicism, fear and apprehension. That's the effect of the cosmic miracle revealed in 29 A.D.: "the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world...we are convinced that one has died for all, therefore all have died...therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come" (Revelation 4:8; Corinthians 4:14,17).
Leaving the Earth
But how do you enter that God-recreated self that has the innocence of the child you once were? How do you get into the spaceship that carries you beyond the earth's limiting atmosphere?
Here's one obvious truth--you can't get into what you're in already! And you're already in that spaceship -- "God...even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4-7). That is the part of reality that exceeds the dreams of space-fiction: while you live your daily life here on earth, the "real you" exists in spaceless eternity waiting for you to believe it. That is, in fact, how you enter this new dimension -- you believe the Creator's statement -- and behave accordingly.
Simple Faith
There is no other way. Your original creation is beyond your understanding, and certainly your pre-original re-creation is beyond your understanding, so the only step you can take is belief in the Creator's statements. This involves more than a childish declaration of belief in yellow fairies just because you choose to believe in them. It means a realization of the egotistic, self-seeking and self-gratifying individual you have become through your dependence on yourself and others instead of God. It means arriving at a place of absolute despair of changing yourself that makes you desperate enough to see the sense of the radical destruction and recreation that your Creator has carried out.
Only such absolute despair and dependence on God's work in Christ makes a person willing for the radical change that is to be worked in their nature. Only such a change enables the superhuman life of the Maker to infuse totally the inside and outside of a human being. Only such an infusion of superhuman spirit from God can lift a human creature into the life we were originally created to live.
Such an absolute change of mind and will about how we live life constitutes the metanoia or repentance that validates the intervention of eternity in this temporal life. But this new birth continues only as we live in the new reality of dependence on the Creator rather than the world of men and circumstances and things.
A Leap Into Cleaness
Personal change is a "leap into cleanness". It isn't a long drawn out struggle to overcome the selfishness in you. It is a glorious leap into the "perfect you" that has been resurrected in Christ in the presence of God. It's not something you do, but an eager, whole-hearted embracing of what God has done for you in His Son. Suddenly it dawns upon you that "you have been crucified". God did it when he included you in His Son. You must choose to live a crucified or an uncrucified life. But the actual crucifying is not in your hands -- it's been done for you. The life-shattering change from within that begins to take place, takes you out into a life of such vivid, carefree existence that it may take the next five years to describe it. Let's begin in the next article.
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