A Journey to Mars

I just watched this movie the other night called 'The Fountain.' It wasn't really my kind of flick and I thought it was going to a lot better than it really was. I give it thumbs down.

Anyways, one thing that stuck out to me was this theme of death being an act of creation. It stems out of a Buddhist reincarnation philosophy which says that when you die you simply become something else. Kinda interesting. That got me thinking about Christianity....

Paul in scripture says that we must die to ourselves so that Christ may then live through us. Our bodies are dead because of sin but our spirit becomes alive when we are born again through His righteousness. In 1 Corinthians Paul talks about the resurrection of the body being turned into a body that is fit to dwell with Jesus and even in ecclesiology the church is seen as the incarnation of Christ, we are the 'body of Christ.'

Why is this important? Because it seems to me that the church in America has become institutional... a business. Something that you become a member of to receive spiritual insurance like an HMO. But according to scripture we are supposed to be incarnational. The Body of Christ is not an institution in which we need to have catchy marketing and attractional products... the body of Christ is to be incarnational, in other words 'being like God to Pharoah' in Exodus 7. Performing works of service as in Ephesians 4 so that we may become unified in the faith attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. The fullness of Christ means to be an exact replication. Contextually this means that when people experience the church, they can say "I know who Jesus is because of the way these people live, not the way they market him."

The church was never for 'Christians' but rather the church is for those who don't follow Jesus.

So die.

Die to your flesh, your sin, your selfish desires. Ask Jesus to rain on your parade. Ask Him to completely wreck you.

I promise if you do, you'll live like you never thought possible as you fulfill your divine calling as an ambassador of God's kingdom.