I love this time of year, when life begins to emerge out of its lifeless status. Brown turns to green and green turns to vibrant colors of Spring. God provides warmer temperatures and the tempo of life begins to beat a little faster and people begin to emerge from winter hibernation. I realize that Spring happens every year and it has happened for a long, long time, but we need to be reminded of the emergence of life within us, because God created us to live with Him.
We need the Spring reminder because the definition of life has been taken from God’s definition and redefined to be possible without truly relating to God. We have struggled with the redefining of life from the very beginning. When the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was redefined as "good and desirable "(Genesis 3:6) God was excluded from the definition of life. When Noah was commanded to build an ark because "every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5-7), God was excluded from the definition of life and it continues even till today.
Jesus confronted the religious leaders who had a skewed definition of life, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40). What a tragedy to be so close to life but not have it! The reason, “they loved human praise more than praise from God (John 12:43). Our struggle has not changed even today. Perhaps the problems that we face today exist because there is a need to accept God’s definition of life. That is why John wrote about Jesus, “this is written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31”.
Life in Jesus is what we are called to, it is God’s design, and His plan. The next time circumstances are not centered on the life that only Jesus can give we need to stop and examine our own definition of life. We need to refrain from our own limitations of defining life and ask the question, “How am I relating to Jesus.” After all, “Jesus is the way and the truth and the life and no one come to the Father except through Him” (John 14:6). Otherwise, we resist God’s gift of life, and exalt our own limitations of not relating with Jesus. As Spring emerges with life, may we evaluate our own definition of life and be reminded that Christ has brought us from death to life because God created us to live with Him.