GETTING LIFE FROM CHRIST

Last week we considered the idea that effective ministry requires a real communication of life from Jesus. This is what he meant when he said, “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). When it comes to spiritual ministry of any kind, we are as dependent upon him as a vine branch is upon the root stock that supports it.

This naturally provokes the question, “How can I get this life from him?” It’s a question that echoes through the centuries. Life from Christ is something every true Christian and church in every age has wanted. Scan the centuries and you will see everywhere earnest people clamouring for more spiritual power, more of the life of Christ in their ministries, more of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those they serve. You see it in the desert fathers and mothers, the mystics and in the monastics of the earlier days of the church. It is there in the Puritans and the Pietists, the leaders of the Evangelical Awakening in the eighteenth century and the holiness and missionary movements of the nineteenth. And you see it in the recent history of the charismatic renewal in the twentieth century. The cry of God’s children through the ages has been to know more of him, to experience more of the life of Christ.

One might suppose that given this long quest and the ardency of great Christians involved in it along the way, that there might have been a universally applicable solution to soul thirst discovered – a formula or code that would guarantee unlimited enjoyment of the full life that Jesus promised. Certainly, there have been enough solutions offered. From the elaborate directories of monastic orders to the “Six Steps to Baptism in the Holy Spirit” there has been advice aplenty. But the overwhelming testimony of both individuals and churches is that neat formulae just don’t deliver what they promise. To put it another way, the life of Christ can’t be packaged and dispensed mechanically.

That’s because it is found in him and can only be obtained from him. This was a lesson Jesus tried to teach the Jews of his day. On one occasion while in Jerusalem he said to them, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life” (John 5:39). He was evidently referring to the confidence they put in their technical understanding of the Law and the Prophets. However, he went on to say, “These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (v. 40). Had they understood the Scriptures properly they would have seen that life wasn’t to be found in mere learning, but in the one they learned about. Had they seen that, they would have gladly come to him when he arrived in person, and would have received life from him. Instead, they busied themselves in becoming experts in the Scriptures, all the time believing that this was the way to eternal life. It was their formula, their technique for obtaining life.

Repeatedly in John’s Gospel we see Jesus declaring that the life people were looking for was to be found in him – in his person. He was the living water the thirsty craved, and the bread of life that the hungry needed (John 4:10, 14; 6:35). If only people would come to him, and eat and drink of the food and water that he supplied, they would have all the life they could imagine – and more besides.

This holds as true today as it did while Jesus was on earth. Jesus himself remains the source of the life we seek, and it can only be obtained by coming to him, directly and personally. That is to say, it can only be received through a relationship with him. That’s why well-meaning directories, techniques and formulae so often fail. It’s not that what they are saying is necessarily wrong (if they essentially point people to Jesus). But typically, our passion for simple and quick “how to” processes leads us to trust the formula rather than the Person it is pointing to. We focus on following the “Six Steps” or the “Proven Guide to Exciting Quiet Times” and in the process, miss the Person.

In effect, we make the mistake of supposing Christ’s life can be obtained mechanically through some technique. But it can only be received directly from him in the context of an interactive personal relationship.

That’s precisely where our problem lies. It’s more difficult to sustain a personal relationship than it is to perform a mechanical action. Knowing Jesus takes time, the help of his Spirit, and the ministry of other people. It is so much easier to repeat a set prayer than it is to engage in communion with him. It is even easier to read Christian books and study doctrine than it is to pray. But he won’t be short-changed. There is simply no other way to experience his life apart from coming to him and remaining in him. That’s an activity of faith and love that we shall explore further next week.