On this day after the Boston Marathon bombing, I extend my prayers on behalf of the families of those are suffering loss and injury.  It’s hard to schedule today’s post and I’ve rewritten part of it to be sensitive to their pain.  But in another sense, Living the Risen Life–particularly when we face immense suffering–offers the opportunity to be reminded of the distinction between happiness and joy.

Let’s face it: happiness is fleeting.  It’s a surface condition that the winds of change and the storms of life can disturb.  Storms of life can be ones such as yesterday’s horror that everyone recognizes and in which we all feel your pain to some degree.  But storms can also be events that are still significant even if less visible on the news: like losing a job or an account; gaining weight despite your best efforts; getting yelled at by a family member, neighbor, or boss; seeing a Facebook status that ruins your day; watching the nightly news; or receiving a bad health report.  Any of these things in addition to hearing news that is tragic about someone you love can cause any of us to have our happiness vanish.

Joy, on the other hand, comes from knowing the powerful love of God and having the assurance of salvation.  This is secured to the Rock of Ages and cannot ever be shaken. Our circumstances may not be happy and our season of life might not feel like happiness, but let’s always remember that joy is different.  It’s deep in our souls and it cannot be taken away.  Not ever.

Not ever…now that’s the stuff of hope!

Furthermore, because our hope is not resting on some transient happening in our circumstances, we are able to experience joy even in the times when our happiness is stripped away.  Jesus said in John 16:22 “So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.”

Has someone or something stolen your happiness for now?  They can’t take your joy.  Know this rock solid kind of life Jesus died to give us!  Know the hope of eternal life.  Jesus came and lived and died to offer us forgiveness and make it possible for us to be Living the Risen Life, Joyful in Hope.

Ever felt like giving up?  I do all the time.  Nevertheless, it’s always too early to throw in the towel on doing good things.  No matter where we are in our Christian walk, we must press on diligently, just as Jesus said, if we’re going to call Jesus “Lord.”

You see, the Christian life isn’t just a bunch of Don’ts or How Dare You’s.  It’s a lifetime of Dos—of doing good things!  Today, we see that diligence in doing good is required for Living the Risen Life.  We’ve seen diligence before.  It was previously in the passage from Romans 12:11, but there, it was called zeal, coupled with spiritual fervor.  But it’s the same Greek word with different nuance in the range of meaning.

Diligence is putting one foot after the other, keeping busily about our work, not letting distractions drag us off track or off task, and not letting discouragement get the better of us.  It’s a dedication to the work to be done whether or not anyone acknowledges what we are doing.  That’s because while people might not notice our work, God always does.  More than simply noticing, God does not forget.  That’s because to God, it’s evidence of your love for Him when you help others.  So we persevere, faithfully doing good and showing love to God and others as our mission on earth.  This is how we can be Living the Risen Life with Diligence.

Frankly, celebrity is getting out of hand in the United States.  Far too many people want attention to the point where they will do shameful, stupid, immoral, or evil things to get it.  Look at the nightly news, what do we see?  Sex, lies, and videotapes.  Killers of boyfriends, girlfriends, children, strangers, family, and policemen.  It’s appalling.

Fifteen minutes of fame seems to be all that matters–never mind that it’s fifteen minutes now, resulting in lifetime status in The Hall of Shame for all the time that follows.  It’s like Hotel California where shame is only programmed to receive.  You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

You know those plastic collars, “the cone of shame”, that dogs sometimes wear when they come out of the vet’s office?  I sometimes think that the American people would have an easier time identifying who has acted shamefully if God were to apply a cone of shame to each person who has sought celebrity status, or political self-aggrandizement instead of honoring others. But then, the covers of People Magazine and tabloids wouldn’t look nearly so appealing to cult worshipers of celebrity.

God tells us that as Christians, we Live the Risen Life… by Honoring Others.  We don’t seek our own self-promotion, but we look to help other people.  This is so foreign to American life that it’s hard to imagine what a different world we’d live in if everyone put aside their striving to be Number One and looked to the interests of all others…not just to special interest groups who serve to make sure our celebrity continues.

I wish people could see politics as I do and perceive that politicians might talk about helping others, but really, they’re just using other people’s needs to promote themselves. The person who is supposed to be the public servant has instead become a public figure, a celebrity, and those with real needs and real pain have become the servants.

It is the Church that is supposed to serve the needs of others for no reason other than our witness to God’s love.  That is what today’s passage says.  True humility sacrifices oneself for the benefit of others.  It’s what we do because of what Jesus did for us.  Living the Risen Life means Honoring Others.

Brotherly love is not an easy thing to have.  Especially when there are so many things capable of dividing us from one another.  Even among Christians, we can be divided by politics, by socio-economic status, by race, by gender, by theological concepts, and by a myriad of other things.

But, in today’s passage, we see that when we are purified by the truth of the Gospel, we will be able to love one another deeply…from the heart!  How does the truth of the Gospel purify us?  Well, it becomes the overarching truth of our lives.  We are sinners.  God is righteous and holy.  We need a Savior, each and every one of us.  We therefore ought to see ourselves and each other through the lens of humility.

Ought differences between men and women divide us when Christ died to unite us?  Ought the rich resent the poor or the poor hate the rich when Christ died to unite us in brotherly love?  The problem in Americn culture is that we’ve lost sight of the truth of what we’re worshiping and have forgotten what it means to love one another deeply.

So let’s remember the truth of the Gospel and feel the needs of others as acutely as we feel our own.  Let’s resolve to treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ rather than as adversaries.  Let’s remember that heaven’s residents will be those we agreed with and those we did not here on earth.  Let’s take all the worldly agendas that drive our daily existence or drive a wedge between us and nail them to the Cross where Jesus died to make peace with God for us.  Then the truth of the Gospel will purify us and free us to love one another deeply.

When we call Jesus “Lord” there are many things we will do out of love for Him.  We Live the Risen Life by Doing Good.  Are you at a loss for what types of things you can do as a Christian?  Over the next few days, we’ll see what the Word of God says.  As you read the passages of Scripture, stop and think about the fact that these are grammatical imperatives.  They are commands…for the person who calls Jesus “Lord.”

When my kids were little, I pulled them out of school one day to see the Olympic torch pass through a neighboring community.  It was a once in a lifetime event for us and my kids still remember it.  News spread about the torch passing through and it drew a huge crowd.

In the same way, if you are a Christian, then you are a light.  You won’t be able to hide it–if you’re genuine–because your love for Jesus will overflow.  And let’s face it: you’ll be seen.

The upside to being seen is that light draws our attention, as do the good deeds we produce…especially when we don’t brag about them.  People will see you do these things out of love for Jesus and it draws people to step into the light.

Sure, our witness (the salt from the previous verses) can become polluted and worthless if we’re careless and do not guard it.  But our witness can also be light and beautiful if we uphold it and let it shine!

“You are the salt of the earth.” Jesus said it, but what did He mean?  Salt could refer to the kind mined out of the earth for food preservation and flavor enhancement purposes.  Salts are minerals used for fertilizing crops.  But salt could also be pointing back to the Old Testament.  Salt was highly prized and quite valuable.  Therefore it was a powerful sign of the covenant and both sacrifices and offerings were to be seasoned with salt to demonstrate purity and value.

Season all your grain offerings with salt.

Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings;

add salt to all your offerings. (Leviticus 2:13)

No matter which salt is our understanding, one thing is unmistakable:

salt needs to be pure and undiminished. 

Our lives, too, must stand firm as our witness to who Jesus is.  Lose our saltiness, and we lose our witness.  Living the Risen Life Undiminished means that we will not let our beliefs about what God says be mixed with things the world says.  We will not pollute or dilute the Word of God and render it ineffective.  We will not water down the concept of sin until the sacrifice of Christ is nothing but divine caulk to help pretty good people pass muster.

No, our lives are an offering back to God as well as a witness to other people regarding the value of Christ.  Therefore, we must be Living the Risen Life Undiminished.

It’s not easy to love other people.  They let us down.  They hurt our feelings.  They pass us over.  They discriminate against us. They make us jealous.  They oppress us.  They ignore us.

Love isn’t the first thing that often comes to mind.  But before Jesus went to His death, He told us about Living the Risen Life by Loving One Another.

Hmmm.  What are you more likely to feel about your fellow human being? Maybe you’re a compassionate soul who only thinks good things like friendship, mercy, and graciousness.  Wish I could say that’s my default mode.  For me, I keep crucifying that old nasty woman I am by nature, but she keeps trying to come back as the walking dead.  What might be part of your old human nature?

Competitive energy, superiority, or ambivalence? Distrust, anger, envy, or hate?  Bitterness, spite, desire for retribution or revenge?  Maybe you feel like you want to get away from others, from their negative influences or bad priorities, or maybe they just wear you out with their troubles, their talk-talk-talk, or their bragging about their successes?

Jesus says deny yourself.  Put to death the old ways of the past.   Show the world you are now His disciple by obeying the new command to love one another.  Just as He said, that’s the way to be Living the Risen Life.

Death before Resurrection.  It seems like a no-brainer, but we die hard.  Just as He said, before we can genuinely follow Him, we must deny ourselves.  We must die to our will, our desires, our lordship, our plans, our pride, our possessions, our control, and ourselves. Only then can we follow Him in Living the Risen Life.  What areas of your old life do you struggle to let die?  Your desire to make plans of your own and see them through?  Your satisfaction at earning money and doing what you want with it?  Your possessions?  Your need to have everything make sense before accepting it?  Your expectations about what happiness looks like?  Your hunger for signs of success?  Jesus says, submit all these things to God.  Deny yourself.  Pick up that cross on which you put to death your desires of self-determination.  Then, you will be free to follow Him in Living the Risen Life.

No mere tweaking of the body of death, a radical transformation is required for Living the Risen Life.

A sea change in priorities.  An overhaul of our entire world view.  A conversion from the relentless pursuit of the desires of our hearts to continually seeking the will of God’s heart.

How do we accomplish such a complete transformation? This happens when we take God at His Word, hearing and believing what He says.

1 John 3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Just as He said, this is how we cross over from death to life, not that we’ll always live perfectly, but our perspective and our desires have been changed and He who knows our hearts will give us life everlasting.