Survivors

 I just read where the "Survivor" TV series is set to embark on its 50th season. It has had an enormous following. It's never appealed to me. Maybe it once would have, back when I did see life as a matter of survival, somehow, holding on, making it through, be found to be still standing, or at least not destroyed at the end of it all. Jesus Christ changed that perspective when He entered my life. I don't see life as a journey with survival as the goal. I see it as one of victory. A life of overcoming. Overcoming challenges, losses, heartache, and suffering. These are things that happen to everyone in this fallen world, but Christ does not mean to just get us through, to somehow make it to the end of life, even if we have never really lived along the way. He means for us to have life, His life, in abundance and all along the way. On the mountaintops and in the valleys. In the sunlight and in the darkness. In our triumphs and in our failures, because in Him, failure is not final, and He can and will turn even our greatest failures into His greatest triumphs in us.

The survival mode is ingrained in our fallen nature. It's in our spiritual DNA. It begets our living with an orphan/slave mentality. Orphans never feel secure. They always feel they must prove themselves. They always feel they must win acceptance, even love. We are all orphans apart from Christ, but through saving faith in Christ, we are no longer orphans, we are sons and daughters of God. Scripture says that we are "co-heirs with Christ," having the fullness of His Kingdom riches at our disposal. Most professing believers know that Scripture, but it seems so few of us really live it out. Somehow, we continue to live like orphans, trying to win the approval of God. Trying to earn His love and acceptance, as well as His gifts. We end up living in survival, trying to get into a "room" that we already have been given access to in Christ. Even though we mentally agree that we're "in Christ," we go on living as if we're alone, and on our own. It's a lie from the pit, but so many have believed it. We continue to worry and fret over what might happen, whether what we have today will last until tomorrow? Jesus told us to take no thought for these things, that He will be our Source in all things. Like the TV program, we live as if we're on an island somewhere, spiritual contestants in the enemy's game of "Survivor," and missing the Kingdom because of it. We're too busy surviving to ever really live. 

Christ calls us to leave Survivor Island and it's captivity, and come to Him and partake of the bread and milk of His Life. No longer survivors, orphans, or slaves, but sons and daughters, and co-heirs of the Lord Jesus Christ. No longer living in the waiting room, but in the throne room of the King. No longer in survival mode, but in the "Kingdom has come" mode. All you need do.....is to come.

Blessings,
Pastor O