Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
It's a strange but delightful promise that God makes to us--that our Lord Jesus Christ will dwell with us, live with us, share our abode with us: He "has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" (Eph. 1:3). Imagine living in such "places"!
We may live in a shack--but the Lord Jesus says He will live with us there, share our humble abode, partake of our lowly hospitality as our permanent Guest. His holy presence with us makes our shack become a Palace. It is transformed into a "heavenly place," the loftiest abode in the universe. Never again are we to be lonely. Life each new day becomes a fresh adventure, for we never can anticipate the new and unimagined joy that becomes ours, dwelling with Jesus in a divine intimacy.
Even Jesus Himself shares with us the unimaginable joy of living in "heavenly places," for in verse 20 we read that the Father "raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the [same] heavenly places." In the case of Jesus there is a super magnificent heavenly joy involved, for Jesus was "dead," and no one can ever appreciate life like someone who was "dead"--the only such Man so far is Jesus, and now it's we also through living faith in Him.
Our brother and fellow-believer in Christ, the beloved apostle Paul, has a glimpse of what it all means. He has a unique insight: he sees us as having been "dead," but he also sees our present life therefore as being a "resurrection" from death. Interesting insight! This transforms life for us: it makes our present ordinary existence to be transformed into a magnificent resurrection of life.
Your eternal life "in Christ" has already begun; you may yet go to sleep a bit, but if your name is in the Lamb's Book of Life, nothing can ever take it out (aside from your own choice, which, God forbid!).
"I have come," says Jesus, "that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). That's your life today; it transforms what you thought was your mere existence into the most glorious life in all the universe--life with Christ, its Creator, its Sustainer, and the Savior of it all. And there's no end to it, ever! Thank Him that it's true, and then serve Him gladly forever.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: October 3, 2008.
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