Most Christians can talk about Christ being a real person who lived on this earth many years ago. Most Christians speak of Christ being alive in the Scriptures through His words and deeds. Almost every Christian believer can share about the fundamental gift of Christ dying on the cross for our sins and the fact that Christ rose again on the “Third Day.” Most Christians will be able to relate to others the importance of the Resurrection in their Christian faith. Still, are we as Christians really letting the Risen Christ live in us?
If the Risen Christ is truly living in us, would not all of our living be about the Risen Christ? Instead of us trying to be Christian in our living by trying to “Do everything in the name of Christ” (Colossians 3:17), would not our living, simply be “Doing everything in the name of Christ?” How do we go from trying to be like Christ in all we do to simply being like Christ in all we do? I have nothing against trying but above all my trying, I want to just let the Holy Spirit have His complete way with my heart. I want the presence of the Risen Christ in every moment of my life. I want the Risen Christ to come into my being like air and flow out of me as His love, in all that I do.
How do I do that? Do I simply release every moment to the Risen Christ? Do I simply choose to make His ways, the pathways that I will follow as the Holy Spirit reveals them to me by the Word and His presence? How then do I hear everything that the Holy Spirit would speak to me? Even if I only want what the Risen Christ wants for my life, how to do I dismiss every other want that comes into my mind? How do I see, discern and reject every impulse from the human heart that would that run counter to truth of the Risen Christ in me?
My desire and intention to be like the Risen Christ can seem so circulatory that I am at times left with a bit of a quandary in the wanting and trying. Still it seems to always bring me back to some sort of prayer. Prayers of confession, prayers of desperation, prayers of releasing my will, prayers of invitation, prayers of hope, and prayers to simply follow the Risen Christ in all that I do. Maybe I just need to be still to all the other voices in the culture around me and simply say yes to follow the Risen Christ in all I do? I guess it is not in the wanting or even in some kind of doing but in my saying yes to the Risen Christ. Maybe “Doing everything in the name of Christ,” is simply praying yes to everything that the Risen Christ wants me to do? I say yes, Risen Christ and Lord … yes, yes, yes!
“Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.” St. Francis of Assisi
