Where Am I?

A month ago, I wrote about the Crucifixion and what it accomplished. I talked about Jesus taking into His person every kind of sin—every manifestation of a fallen creation, and breaking the power of it all by carrying it through to death: every disease and infirmity, every oppressing emotion, every selfish, wicked act, every calamity.

It was a complete victory. That is why Jesus proclaimed from the cross just before He died, “It is finished.” And yet I’m sure there are many people who read that and thought, “Such grand conclusions bear little resemblance to the world in which I live. I am sick. I am depressed. I’ve done awful things. I’ve had terrible things happen to me. Where is this victory?” It’s a fair question.

It all comes down to where you live. Where are you?

As we read the Bible persistently, we continually get more of a sense of its broader overview. One of the things we discover is that as we embrace Christ, all that He is and all that He did, we are living in two places at the same time. We live here on Planet Earth, with our lives planted in temporal terra firma, and we also live in a mysterious place called “in Christ.” Unlike our physical life in a world that we can see and feel and touch—a life that is slowly, inevitably, passing away, our life in Christ goes on forever. And that forever has already begun.

The trick is to learn to live there. We are already there, in Christ, positionally, as far as God is concerned, once we have placed our trust in Christ; but experientially, we must learn to live there, continually conscious of the kingdom of God and its rule over us. It is there we discover that the shackles of our worldly life are losing their power over us.

Life is hard. That should come as no surprise to us; Jesus Himself said, “In the world you will have trouble.” But then He adds, in one eye-witness account, “But be of good cheer—” and in another, “But don’t be afraid—for I have overcome the world.” He overcame the world and all its troubles—all its fallenness—through the Cross.

Now, how is it any benefit to you and to me that He has overcome, if we still have to walk through all the brokenness ourselves? Jesus wants us to know that we don’t have to go it on our own, alone and powerless. Because—if we will learn to live “in Him”—and not just in the world as carnal beings, we also—like Jesus, and through His help—will overcome the trouble that comes our way.

“This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:4-5, NIV). So embracing Jesus as the Son of God is the first step in positioning ourselves to being an overcomer through Jesus.

Paul the Apostle instructs us further: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith” (Col. 2:6-7, NKJV). So walk in Him. Or as the NIV has it, “Continue to live your lives in Him.” Because, as Paul goes on to say a few verses further, “In Him, you are complete” (v.10). The whole verse reads like this: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” As you can see from that verse, at the same time that we are in Christ, so also is “the fullness of the Godhead” dwelling there. What a place to live! There can be no lack of any kind. That is why the Psalmist said, “I shall not want.”

What is it that you need? Love—when you’re feeling unloved, or unloving? Joy—when your habit has always been to just plod on in the dull doldrums of duty? Peace—when circumstances threaten to overcome you in a whirlwind of anxiety? For every challenge, the antidote lies in Christ. “For in Him we [were designed to] live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), “just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).

This is what God did: “He raised [Christ] from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come” (Eph. 1:20-21). This age and also in the age to come: this means both present and future. And then “God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ … and made us sit together [with Him] in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” This is right now, real time. And here’s the kicker, if you can get your head around it, “… that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:4-7).

In John Chapter 15, Jesus calls it abiding in Him. Eleven times in six verses He uses the word abide, and He makes some powerful promises about what will happen as we learn to do that. Twice in that short passage He says, “Abide in Me, and I in you.” I used to read that and wonder, How can He be in me at the same time as I am in Him? But one day I got the picture: I clasped my right wrist with my left hand at the same time as I clasped my left wrist with my right hand. 

Now that is a secure relationship! I in Him and He in me. He's hanging on to me, and I'm hanging on to Him.

Also in that passage, Jesus gives an important clue to how we can cultivate awareness of our position in Christ: “…if My words abide in you” (v.7). The only way for His words to live in us is for us to spend time in His Word. Another clue: “Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him and He in him” (1 John 3:24). So listen to what He says, and then do it!

In John 17, Jesus prays to the Father for all who believe and those who one day would believe, down through the ages, “that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me” (v.21-23). God in Christ and Christ in us, at the same time as we are in Christ. What a great place to be!

Where am I? I’m in Christ, positionally (according to God); and experientially, I'm learning to live there, more and more each day. Where are you?