Some will refuse to hear the calling of the Creator to His creation, preferring darkness to light and death to life. Others will hear, and live.
In one of my recent posts, I began to explore God's callings to us, starting with the call our deadened ears first hear: the call to come out of darkness and to fellowship with Him in His light. This is the call that awakens our souls. It mirrors the call that awakens Creation from its chaotic, voiceless state. God declares, "Let there be light!" and there was. God calls to us, "Come into my light!"
Many ignore God's call into His light. Others respond and then, even worse, return to the dark! And what is darkness but the absense of light? They prefer the familiar darkness of their own bondage to the scouring light of God's presence.
Our second call from God is to live. He calls us to join in the exuberant bursting forth of all the living creatures—oceans suddenly teaming, plants suddenly unfurling, animals suddenly rushing, and humans suddenly inhaling. From the dust in the dirt God creates vessels to receive His life-breath.
And that is our purpose: to receive His life and to return it in the form of glorious worship in a never-ending, unceasing process where nothing is lost in the receiving and giving. This position of gratefulness—this receiving and giving—is the life-giving position of creation before the Creator. THIS is eternal life: That they may intimately know the one True God (John 17:30) and His Son.*
He calls us to live life, not with a definite beginning and end, but one without end, ever growing and increasing in fellowship and intimacy with God. When Adam and Eve chose rebellion, they died, just as God promised they would if they ate from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The part of them that died was the part that was connected to the Giver and Sustainer of Eternal Life. When the connection died, the glory of God that covered them departed, and they knew they were naked.
Ever since The Rebellion, we've been born disconnected from God and in darkness. Christ, being fully God and fully man, was never disconnected from the eternal life that flows from the Father. Through Christ, the part of our selves that was once dead and disconnected, is now connected and alive. We live eternal life, now (John 17:3).
This is an important point: Our eternal life begins when we become alive in Christ, not when we die in this earth and go to Heaven. We are not waiting to live eternal life...it is ours, as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.
While we are here on earth, we are supposed to address the death and decay around us with eternal life, just as Christ did. Everything He did was so we could follow His example. The longer I walk with God, the more clearly what we call "abiding in Christ" or "abiding in the Vine" comes into central focus as the vital (and often missing) link to the power of living as Christ. This, I believe, is the reconnection Christ enabled through his death, exemplified in His life, and to which He calls us. (A great video explaining eternal life can be found, here.)
We can see Jesus take brief moments and even drawing away for days to connect with the Father before He performs miracles. In our Bibles, the word used is translated "thankfulness" but that translation is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Consider just two of the locations this word is used:
"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened." - Romans 1:21 NIV
"And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.'" - Luke 22:19 NIV
Obviously, this word is more than thanks...forgetting to say thanks won't launch someone into the depravity outlined in Romans 1, sometimes referred to as the unpardonable sin. Romans 1 outlines the unpardonable condition of depravity that is the natural result of creation rebelling against its Creator. It outlines the unpardonable refusal to connect or reconnect to the eternal life that is offered to them in the person of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit.
This thankfulness that Christ displays is far more than a pre-meal blessing. It's standing in the right position before God the Father, receiving and giving back. It's connecting to the sustainer of life. It's the precursor to partaking of Christ's body so we become transformed into Christ's image.
Grace reconnects us to the life Christ provides.
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* From Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words: “John especially has a rich view of what it means to ‘know.’ When Jesus says he knows his sheep and he knows the Father, he is speaking of an intimate relationship that involves deep feelings of love (Jn. 10:14–15). Such a relationship leads to obedience on our part (10:27). ‘Those who say, “I know him,” but do not do what he commands are liars’ (1 Jn. 2:4; cf. 3:6). In fact, Jesus defines eternal life as ‘knowing God and Jesus Christ,’ which involves both faith in him and love for him (Jn. 17:3). By contrast, John makes it plain that the world ‘does not know’ God (Jn. 17:25; 1 Jn. 3:1).” (Bill Mounce)