Yes! We’re human BEINGS. Each and every single day, we choose to be, to do, to learn, to grow, to BE. Each of these choices determines who we are and who we become.
The choice to follow Jesus is more than whispered prayer to avoid hell and the separation from God in eternal death.
The choice to follow Jesus begins with first believing in His great love and sacrifice. We choose to believe in Him and accept Him as Savior.
Then, we choose to follow Him in in our love and trusting expectation – a demonstration or proof of our faith. This is where we demonstrate Jesus is Lord. We obey Jesus’ command to love Him with all of our mind, heart, soul, and strength; to choose to die to self spiritually and walk in a resurrected life in Christ.
“Now what?” you might ask. What in the world does this mean? How can I die but live? How can I be resurrected in Christ when He’s at the right hand of God the Father?
Read Colossians 3:1-11. In his book Basic Christianity, Pastor John Stott summed this up in the midst of a quote: “If we lose ourselves in following Christ, we actually find ourselves.”
Let’s move beyond words and to the application. A married person makes a choice every day to be loyal and loving or to be hateful and hurtful. One struggling to overcome addiction makes a choice every morning to continue down the road of enslaved living to substances that numb and alter only their perception, not their reality, or they live sober and fight on to be clean and free. One whose self-esteem is so fragile that they struggle with the truth can either choose to keep living lie after lie or they can be real, authentic, and honest.
Take note, friends. If we choose anything but being and living an authentic life that is in pursuit of Jesus, we end up on our own, often living isolated, hurt, broken, in our own ways, and in our own messes that are guaranteed. Many who reject choosing to be like Jesus in life by dying to your own ways end up becoming that which we despise.
Be who God created you to be!
Ephesians 2:10 tells us that “we are His creation (workmanship), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.” Your life has purpose, a kingdom purpose, when lived in Christ.
1 Corinthians 6:20 explains that the fact that Jesus has “bought us at a price” elicits our natural response that “we glorify God.” But beyond magnifying Jesus with the words of our lips, we are to look at verse 19 to understand that the best version of you is when you’re in Christ, yielded and operating as who God said you are to be.
As Paul wrote in Colossians to a church heavily influenced by culture, academia, and various religions, the word picture is painted clearly that our faith in Jesus means we have been spiritually raised with Him because, like Him, we’ve died to self and His Spirit has raised us to a new, resurrected life.
Now, this resurrected life is not some comic book farce of a perfect life with no problems, no struggles, and plenty of wealth and success. Our lives are lived higher than this world’s trappings, temptations, and tests. Colossians 3:2 instructs us to “set your minds on what is above, not what is on the earth.”
The higher life in Christ sees through the drama and trauma to pursue thing of Jesus, His ways, His teachings, connecting with His Body, and serving His kingdom on this earth, not running on the treadmill of life without His Spirit guiding and directing us.
Choosing to Be in Christ is a life “hidden with the Messiah in God”- a life of victory in Jesus, noted in verse 3. Our flesh no longer controls us. Fear no longer hinders us. Instead, faith is the choice that propels us forward.
As believers and followers of Jesus Christ, we choose to be holy. Stop! Don’t you dare stop reading. When we read something that challenges our lives, we swipe the phone, turn the page, or just “x” out. No. Stop. If we believe in Jesus as Savior, if He is Lord of our lives, we are called “God’s chosen ones, holy and loved...”
Nothing we do makes us holy. Jesus’ blood is that which covers our sins in love and makes them appear to God as white as snow. So, yes! We are made holy – or separated as sacred or a saint – by the blood shed in love by Jesus. But we must choose to live under His covering, obeying His commands and doing what the rest of Colossians 3:12-17 instructs. We are to “put on” Jesus Christ as Paul describes in great detail: heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, accepting one another and forgiving one another...just as the Lord has forgiven you. Above all, put on love – the perfect bond of unity...”
Adorning Jesus as the substitute for our flesh is not just beautiful, it’s the highest of life.
Listen to the full teaching below .
Accept the challenge: Choose to be... like Jesus. You become that which you choose.