Adjective: alive 1. living, not dead. According to this definition, the person who has been lying in a coma for three months is alive. The person who is on life support is alive. The person who is moments from the end of their life is alive. But one may argue that there is more to being alive than merely breathing. Perhaps you may even think that the degree to which you are alive corresponds to the enjoyment of life you are experiencing due to your health, finances, relationships, and so on.
I argue that there is much more to living than “not dead”. And for the person who is alive in Christ, it is a whole new way to experience “alive”. Since Nicodemus was a Pharisee and ruler of the Jews, he had to sneak around at night to speak to Jesus. Nicodemus believed that Jesus was from God and wanted to know more. Jesus took this opportunity with a man who identified being alive as being religious to tell him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” John 3:3.
This throws Nicodemus for a loop. “How can someone be born when they are old? Surely, they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”. His thinking is literally and is limited by what he has been taught up to this point. Jesus answered, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” Jesus goes on to make the statement that our Christian faith hinges upon, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:6 and 16.
I think the better Spirit definition of alive is, never perish! Jesus was telling Nicodemus that when you become alive to Christ, you are an imperishable new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 says, “So if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”. This is true of how we live day to day. The things that could cause a spirit to perish (like loss, disappointment, brokenness, poor health, etc.) no longer have power over the believer in Christ. The heartbroken individual can find a long list of worldly things to turn to in order to ease the pain, but none of them offer the hope of being truly ALIVE. Only Jesus can offer that.
Being alive in Christ doesn’t mean we stay in a constant state of thrills and giggles. It means that our foundation in Christ is so strong that even when storms come, we are ALIVE through them with joy and hope. C.S. Lewis said “Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people alive.” Even when we were dead in our sins, Christ offered us a way to become truly alive through him.
Dirt Road Believer ministries just celebrated three years. All month in May, Dirt Road Believer YouTube will provide an in-depth look at “Define Alive”. Many Christians tell me they feel like they are going through the motions or they don’t “feel” what they once did. If this is you, I invite you to join my weekly devotions every Tuesday in May for rejuvenation and a renewal!
