“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  Galatians 2:20

Enough theological balderdash is available on the subject of what it looks like for Christ to live in a person.  This is because many see the concept of a laid down life as of the utmost importance, some have gone to great lengths in failed attempts to explain this vital mystery, and yet fewer are actually led by the Spirit, follow Jesus and know by experience the reality of dying daily and taking up life again in Christ.  If I may, here are some tangibles.

I wake up early most mornings to begin a daily fulfillment of duty as assigned to me by the Lord.  I’m not up early because I want to be.  A part of me would rather sleep until 10 and given the rigorous schedule He has for me, that part could probably use it.  Ah, the day’s first death; doing what I must, not because my flesh desires it, but my Lord requires it.  My body says ‘No’, but with my mind I desire to obey His commands and I do, by telling my body what to do.  Wake up.

Some might say, and according to carnal knowledge they might be right, that a person simply can’t keep such a schedule.  I sleep when I can, and certainly not as much as I “should”.  I eat when I can, sometimes I can’t, and certainly not when I would like to or “should”.  None of this matters though because the saying is true, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  I am alive and healthy and continue to be so because He wants me to be.  Every hair on my head is numbered and as I continue to seek His kingdom, He gives to me everything that I need when I need it.  If I didn’t get dinner on account of work to do, it’s because I didn’t need it.  I have food to eat of which you do not know.  My food is to do the will of Him who called Me and to obey His commands.  I haven’t yet gone 40 days without, but if He called me to it, He would also supply the strength by which it should be accomplished apart from “food”.  Jesus lives in me when I do what He did, go where the Father tells me to go and do what He tells me to do, all the while letting Him take care of the travel/eating/sleeping arrangements while I stay attentive to the work set before me.  I don’t do what my flesh wants.  I do what He wants because He is Lord, that’s what “Lord” means.

“Still seems like chatter to me, where are the tangibles?” you say.  How and why I eat and sleep are tangible for starters, but here come some more.  I’ve said a little about my work, but not what it is yet.  Here you go.  My Lord has made me, as well as every single one of His children, a royal priest with the commission to daily tend to the needs of the heirs of His kingdom and to His temple, though they are the same.  Let me explain.  The temple is the place where God dwells.  My brother says this:

“Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”  Ephesians 2:19-22

My brothers and sisters, fellow children of God as they are led by His Spirit, are individually the pieces of His temple as He has arranged Him together a dwelling place for Himself.  My priestly service (latreia in the Greek) is to maintain the temple of God by sharing the things He gives to me for the benefit of His entire family.  Coincidentally, the pieces of His temple, living stones, are also His children, heirs of the promised kingdom and eternal life therein.  So that’s the work given to me, receiving the things He gives to distribute to the rest of His parts as there is need for the mutual edification of the whole.  More specifics on that in a moment.  He has also given me a day job to front this work; to oversee the operation of a café and bakery.  To many, such a job would be merely a means of self-provision, a 9-5 (or 5-5 in my case) to pay the bills and feed the belly.  Not for me though.  I don’t get up early to bake brownies and muffins to feed myself or my family, I trust the Lord for that.  This next paragraph will detail the nuts and bolts of the operation.

It is supposed by most (or at least it used to be) that it is a man’s responsibility to go to work and win bread for his family; that their provision comes by his hands.  Nothing comes by my hands though.  I could wake up at 2am and bake my brains out and not sell a thing.  Similarly, the children of Israel in the wilderness for 40 years could wake up early to search out food for their families and find nothing apart from the provision of the Lord.  It was by His tangible provision of the manna, His command to gather it in certain amounts, and the obedience of the Israelites that they received their provision.  Through the command of God and His work in making the produce available coupled with the obedience of men we receive what He gives.  If we don’t do what He tells us, we don’t eat.  If we disobey on the other side, gathering more than what was commanded, it rots and stinks and we get worms.  I don’t go to work supposing that I make provision for myself.  I go to take care of what my Lord has given me charge of at this point to the effect that my manna basket will be full with enough for the day at its end.

So I said it was a front, this bakery/café gig.  This is how.  I rise early to take care of the baking in preparation for what the rest of the day brings.  If I fail to accomplish that task, I may still be busy with it when I ought to be sharing the Lord’s gift with others that come in during the day.  When the baking is done (and sometimes while I do it), I talk about Jesus.  Though it is difficult to describe the spiritual experience with words, I can say that it many times happens, when certain persons who I may not yet even know walk into the door, that the Spirit of God leaps within me, directing me to engage in conversation and either give or receive what He has given.  I don’t waste time with idle chatter, preferring to have fruitful, edifying conversation about the Lord or to spend time speaking with Him directly as I roll stromboli.  Though it is difficult to avoid, at times, that chatty customer who has much to say about nothing, I still give grace to listen a moment, but am also mindful to politely excuse myself from conversation going nowhere when the opportunity is presented, so as to tend to more pressing matters.  Some days the Lord keeps me very busy in the kitchen in order to give needed material provision.  Other days He frees me from my work their to serve Him in the dining room with costumers.  Whatever it is, I serve Him in it, being keenly aware that He distributes all of these things to me as He sees fit.

When the shop closes at 4, the rest of the work begins.  I work with my wife and also our sister in the Lord, so we have fellowship all throughout the day, meditating on Jesus’ words together, sharing what things He has given us for one another, and even using words to do it when we aren’t taking care of customers.  We are becoming more and more convinced that recently we have come into contact with other children of God, recognized by the Spirit’s observable leading in their lives. In light of this, we have begun to spend a considerable amount of time getting to know the family over the ‘net…for now.  Also, our other brothers and sisters finish their daily duties around the same time and generally make way to the closed café where we spend the rest of our day together, still in the Lord.  Our newly wed brother and sister are also new to the Lord and are still greatly struggling against their flesh.  We spend a fair amount of time helping to bear their burden, exhorting them to continue putting to death the deeds of their body and to cultivate a relationship with one another that honors their Father.  Another sister of ours has been struggling with double-mindedness concerning continued participation in the church institution and following hard after Jesus.  We continually exhort her to come out and follow Jesus, that the lies she hears on Sunday feed her flesh and hold her back from life in Jesus.  We bear one another’s burdens in these ways and more and so fulfill the law of Christ.  And not just spiritually, physically too.  When one part doesn’t have enough food for the day, we share our food.  Presently, the Lord has been leading, and we have been following, my wife and me to downsize, to sell our excess, to renovate the space above the café and make it habitable.  This is so we can be released from the unnecessary burden of keeping a rental house in addition to the work at the shop that He has given us to do.  In letting our house go, our release from that burden is to enable us to help our brother with his, a debilitating car payment.  When we only have one rent instead of two, the Lord has given us to bear our brother’s burden by helping him to be released from his financial bondage.  The reason for this is because if one part of the body is in bonds, the whole body is in bonds.  His bondage is ours and the Lord is freeing us all from these ties that bind to give us to greater service for His Name’s sake.  We also understand His leading in this release from material possession is to eventually end with us being emptied entirely as His plan necessitates.  He has already indicated to us by His Spirit that we are not to be here for much longer, how long we don’t know, but to leave we need to have no baggage.  The ole “sell everything and come follow me, “ ya know?  That is where He is taking us and because we are His children, we gladly follow.

When it comes to a personal life, I don’t have one because the kingdom is communal.  Not in the Shane Claiborne or Tom Stout sense: humanitarian aid and community at the price of compromised truth or a simply a shared living space of profess-ers.  I don’t waste time with things like TV, movies, videogames, magazines, fantasy/fiction/non-fiction and the like.  I read the bible because it is the only thing that really interests me.  I write exhortation and edification as I am led to put online for the hungry children of God.  I used to play boardgames, but have even let that practice go as they seem to breed contention and selfish ambition.  I’m not into competition, it’s not a kingdom value; I only contend against my own flesh and practice cooperation with my brothers and sisters to work together in our conformation the image of Jesus.  My daily routine is not like your average church-goer (I like to call them “Churchians”), characterized by fleshly indulgence with a side of Jesus.  I’m not a compromised DC Talk Jesus Freak, on the cutting edge of mainstream churchianity.  I am an unprofitable servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, content to do His Father’s will just like He did it, by laying this body of death to rest.  It is not I who live but Christ in me in that during His bodily absence from the earth, by my obedience to His commands He continues to do the same things today as if He were present in His own body.  This is what He said,

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.”

What were His works?  Of the many, the less flashy and irrefutably vital ones included telling the truth that His Father told Him to tell, bearing with His brothers and sisters and mothers in love, washing their feet, laying His life down on their behalf, and the list goes on.  Some tangibles that other disciples produced are also recorded.

“Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.  And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.  Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need.
And Joses, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles (which is translated Son of Encouragement), a Levite of the country of Cyprus, having land, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.”

Jesus gave His life for the children of God, would you sell your house for them?  He humbled Himself and came in the appearance of sinful flesh for us, will you leave your world behind (not looking back like Lot’s wife) for Him?  If you discovered that Jesus was not on the pulpit of your church, would you leave church to follow Him?  If you discovered that He has no stock in your successful business, would you forsake it to buy stock in His kingdom?  If you discovered that He was not in the halls of your institute of higher learning, would you drop-out and go to be with Him?  If you want to know tangibles, stop looking for them in words printed on a page or computer screen and come see them in action.  Don’t take my word, come watch my life.  Jesus doesn’t live on pages, He lives in people.  Come and see for yourself if the few of us who stand apart from the masses and cry out, “Follow Jesus or die.” are really led by Him.  If He is not raised from the dead and further, if He does not now live in us then our faith is futile and we are of all, the most pitiable.