Christ’s Gifts

Christ’s Gifts

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.

Colossians 3:1-3

It is incorrect to think that the gift of everlasting life begins only when our body dies. For the person who trusts Christ as their Savior, everlasting life begins immediately, giving us a portfolio of riches that we sometimes don’t realize are available.

Michael Horton, in his book We Believe, suggests that the Christian life involves a cycle. Because the law leads us to despair, we run to Christ. As we abide in Christ, we bear fruit because we share in his Resurrection power. Then we are lifted out of despair and into joy because the realities of Christ give us confidence for this life on earth. Lest we get too comfortable, we need to hear the law again, reminding us that even our best work is no match for Christ’s righteousness. Then we run to him again. Gradually, we realize that “it is the intrusion of the coming age into the present, not the gradual improvement of the sinful nature, that is responsible for our new life and growth in Christ.”^a

When we first put our faith in Christ, we become a new creation. God tells us that the old passes away and the new arrives. God’s Word guides us into truth, and the presence of his Spirit is our “down payment” on the life to come. So we don’t have to wait for physical death or the Rapture before we experience everlasting life. Our faith in Christ makes it a present reality!

Father,

Thanks that the gift of everlasting life is something we begin to experience as soon as we trust Christ. Thanks that we receive your Spirit as a hint of the riches to come. Amen.