The Scandal

"I want to know Christ - yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death." Philippians 3:10...."Christ risen means an open heaven where everything is possible for us in Christ.........By living in His resurrected life, the death that is all around us cannot get its grip upon us." T. Austin-Sparks

There is a question that has gnawed upon my heart and spirit for almost all of the 35 plus years that I have been pastoring; Why, when death and its power has been conquered on the cross and through His resurrection, do so many who claim His name struggle to live in victory? Someone said something to the effect that, with all that it cost the Father and Son through His suffering and death, and all that was won on the cross and through His resurrection, it must be a great scandal in heaven that we live as we do. Scandal is an unpleasant word, but it fits. When we have been given all that we need to live a victorious and overcoming life, it is scandalous that we continue to live as if the victory on the cross and from within the tomb was never won.

The people of God are to be, must be, "fundamentally different in the center of our being." Our power comes from the fact that while we may be living in this world, we are not enslaved to it. We are subjects of a heavenly Kingdom and we live by its government. To grow in Him means that the difference between the kingdom of the world around us and the Kingdom of God within us is ever widening. But can we really say that this has been the case? Which kingdom are we really conforming to?

The key must be found in what Philippians 3 says; that the pathway to the power of His risen life lies through our partaking of His death, which means we partake of His suffering. It means we too go to our own cross and die not only to the kingdom around us, but the dark kingdom within us. This is a path too few want to take, and so, too few are able to secure and live in the life that He has both promised and given us. The only result can be defeat.....and the scandal that goes with it.

There are two kingdoms. One is passing away, and citizenship in it leads to eternal death. The other has existed before the foundation of the world and will never cease to be. We will belong to one or the other. We will be shaped by, and conform to one or the other. One will crush us, and one will lift us up. Living in one will in the end bring us shame. Living in His will bring Him glory. We will choose which we will be a part of. Which do you choose today?

If you say you've already made the choice, and your choice is His Kingdom, then I must ask you, and myself, in light of all He died and rose to give us, in light of all He suffered to bring us, and in light of all He has made available to us, do the lives we now live cause a scandal in heaven?

Blessings,

Pastor O