Revive or Survive?

The "Rat Race" of life. This saying conjures up the image of a lab rat trying to escape while running around a maze or a wheel: an endless, self-defeating, or pointless pursuit. Does this definition strike a cord with anyone? Most people look at life like the show "Survivor" or "The Amazing Race," like life is something that we must get through to get to the best "End" we can.

Life is meant to be more than survived: we were created to thrive in life. This is not to say that we were created to have no problems or issues. Instead of surviving life's problems, we were designed to thrive in them. Christianity is not a problem-avoidance religion that has as it's sole purpose to make our lives comfortable. That is not what Christ came to earth, suffered, died, and rose from the dead for. He came to offer us an abundant life now, and an eternal life later.

Problem is that just like any choice we make, there is a consequence: In order to live as God desires for us, we must first die to our self and live for Christ. Look what Jesus said about tis:

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Matthew 16:24,25 ESV

So Jesus is saying that in order to find the life God has for us, we must lose the life we think is best for us first. This is not easy teaching. As a matter of fact, it was this kind of teaching that offended many, and caused many people to stop following Him. This is the basis to thriving - by dying to self we can then be revived through Christ! Thriving therefore is all about revival not survival! It kind of takes some of the pressure off of us because the work required for this to take place, already took place when Jesus took our place on the cross!

Only when we are able to realize that we must die to self in order to truly live, can we be revived to the place of thriving over surviving. Live for Jesus and live a life that thrives!

In His grip,

Pastor Pat