Episode 79 - Christ Our Life

[00:00:00] Tim: Welcome, this is The Unveiling, Episode 79, Christ Our Life, , and we are all back at the microphones. I appreciate you guys covering for me last week, giving me the freedom to go take the time I needed, and it's good to be back tonight. I gave the title already, Christ Our Life. Now, Ajay came up with this idea and really just told us, let's just sit and talk about it, but didn't give us a ton of information. So I will say we're coming to our mics tonight without a stack of verses prepared and a bunch of background and stories already written to go. So Ajay, we're not a hundred percent clear which direction you're go. Why don't you take us off? [00:00:48] Ajai: \ . Thank you, Tim. Thank you. Good to see you both again. Well, Tim, that's all even I had when I said Christ our life Let's talk about it. , that's all I had. So let's see where we go. But I want to start with John chapter 5 verse 39 Before going there, the more we see , the more we grow, the more we see the grace of God, and the more we see the scriptures, the more we find out, , it's all about Jesus. In fact, , Mark, you also several times made this comment, no matter what the topic , it's about Jesus. So today we are just starting off with you. Let's talk about Jesus. . And there's no other topic. So John chapter five, verse 39, you search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life. These are they which testify of me. But you are not willing to come to me that you may have life see, there are two things here right away that pops out, and I want to bring kind of two points out of here and then toss it to you. And there are several follow up scriptures that make the same point. But I'd first like to make just a couple of points. , as you can see here, it says you search the scriptures. , at the point , when this was written, the only scriptures they had was the Old Testament, the New Testament was not written at this time. When Jesus said this, so he's referring to the Old Testament, he's saying, you search the Old Testament and you think you have eternal life in them. And he's saying that, , they are, they, that testify of me. The whole Old Testament, the whole scriptures is a testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's a testimony of the person. And then he's also saying, , you think there is eternal life in them. And eternal life is not. Immediately, the point he's trying to make is eternal life is not like you go do this, you go do that, you will obtain eternal life. In fact, eternal life is not a thing. And the scriptures are saying, the scriptures are testifying that this man called Jesus Christ, he has eternal life, go to him. And then in verse 40 it says, but you are not willing to come to me that you may have life. So that was the first point. I want to stop here before going to the second one. See if you have any comments on that. [00:03:15] Mark: I do. What stands out to me as I'm listening to you speak that scripture, Ajay. is that they're seeing scripture as not a means to an end, but the end in itself. And I think a lot of Christians do that. I did that for many years before I came to understand and receive the one true gospel, the message of God's grace, Christ and Him crucified. I memorize scriptures. I love scriptures. And that becomes almost like your religion, for lack of a better word. And as I think about that, it's like you can miss Christ himself because the scriptures are just a means to an end and he is the end. All the good things we do as believers are just a means to an end. Going to church, reading scripture, serving, giving, trying to do good things and help people. Those are all good things, but they're not the end. He is the end. And those are, those are, although in and of themselves. There is, you know, of much value is refined gold, it says about the Word of God, but it's only meant to bring us to Christ. I heard a pastor say an interesting thing this weekend, and the pastor said that His whole life, he'd always looked at Scripture as hundreds and hundreds of great stories that God had given us to apply to different areas of our life and different struggles we're having. And that's the way many pastors teach Scripture. They'll go into... This old covenant book or that to try to teach us some lesson on some struggle in life. But this pastor said it's only within the last couple years that the Lord has been showing me. No, it's not hundreds of stories. It's one story. And as Ajay said, all roads lead back to Christ. Everything in scripture from page one to the last page is bringing us to Christ. He's the end. He's the one story. [00:05:23] Ajai: Amen. [00:05:23] Tim: I haven't quite caught up to the discussion yet, Ajay, so why don't we go on to point two. [00:05:31] Ajai: Yeah, the second point I want to make is, , Jesus, it might come as a shocker, but Jesus does not give us eternal life. Eternal life is not a thing that Jesus gives us. But Christ himself is eternal life. See here you see in verse 40, it says, You will not come to me that I can give you eternal life. He doesn't say that, , that you may have eternal life. And then John chapter 10, 10, it says, That I have come Not to give you eternal life that you may have eternal life that you may have life and life more abundantly That is very important to understand that Jesus does not give us eternal life For example, if you are hungry, I might give you a burger that gives you this temporal life or if you're thirsty, I might give you water, ? That is a thing that is outside of me that I'm giving you. But the eternal life that we get is actually Christ himself is our eternal life. Mark, go ahead. I think you were going to say something. [00:06:34] Mark: Yeah, that's a, that is an awesome point, Ajay. It just hit me in the head like a sledgehammer. It's like you're drowning in the ocean. You grab and cling to the life preserver to have life. I just see it as like that. As we cling to Christ and hold on to him, we are alive. , it doesn't matter what we go through. , my last breath could be right now, but I'm clinging to him and holding to him. I'm not waiting. And what's great about that is it really negates all the people who falsely and sadly believe That they have to do work as long as we're clinging to Jesus. That's our life. Yeah It's not about getting something because like like working to get something as a reward He himself is our reward [00:07:26] Tim: So I'm gonna ask this question because I think I can almost already hear listeners asking it because we were brought into Christianity, if no other way than through John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever shall believe in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Right? <Yeah>. It's a, it's the promise of living forever so that whoever believes in him. Will have everlasting life. That seems like a one plus one gives you two. [00:08:04] Mark: I don't think it negates what Ajay just said because it That's true. Because he is our life. When we put our faith in him, we're receiving him and now we have life. So to me that's still holds true for that scripture as well. [00:08:19] Ajai: Yeah, I think that's the thing we are trying to debunk Tim here. You know, when we say everlasting life, Many people think that we live forever. We get this entity or thing called life that somehow it's like an elixir, ? You drink it and then you live forever. That's not the everlasting life that Christ came to give us. Christ came to give us Himself and He's our everlasting life. And in 1 John chapter 5 it says, He that has the Son, in Him was life, in Him is life. And he that has the Son has life, and he that does not have the Son does not have life, because the life is in Him. In fact, the whole book of John is about Jesus life. John was introduced, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and it goes on to say, in Him was life, and the life was the light of man. So by having Jesus Christ, I think the point we are trying to make is, in order to have this eternal life, We must be in Christ. A lot of people don't understand that. , in order for me to have life, I must be in Christ. If I'm not in Christ, I cannot have life. Many people think, , if I do this, if I do that, if I do that, I get this thing called eternal life. Then that eternal life's coming to me and then I'm on my own and I go on to live forever. But that's not the case. I don't know, Tim, if that clarifies or... [00:09:50] Tim: I think that a lot of people equate that term, eternal life, with possessing their identity forever or in some way, shape, or form. Even after the loss of their physical body, we would still remain somehow who we are. I have heard it argued, and tell me what you think of this and we can go past it, that we are eternal beings already, no matter what. It's the only question is, when we do shuffle off this mortal coil or leave these physical bodies. Where do we spend the rest of that eternity in the presence of God or outside of the presence of God? So, I'm not sure how well that ties into what you were just saying, but, , I thought I'd bring it up as a question. [00:10:36] Mark: My opinion is that that's true, but it's not a good way of looking at it, , because the natural thing is to try to scare people into the kind of relationship that you can't scare someone into the love of Christ. I'm In my opinion, so I think it's true, but I don't like that way of looking at it. I like looking at it as we're clinging to Jesus. , Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. That's really clear there. Because when we take our last breath, he's not only your life, he's our resurrection. Paul, the apostle Paul talks a lot about. How that when we put our faith in Jesus, we're buried with him and then we rise with him. So just imagine that we're clinging Like, we died with Christ and we're both laying there on the slab of stone. He rises and we rise with him. It's like, he's our life. We're clinging to him. And so as he's resurrected, that resurrection power resurrects us into life. And in fact, there's, there's many a scripture that says that we will actually never die. Now, I think that means in terms of. , we're still going to have that one physical death here. But as the apostle Paul puts it, he says that because of the resurrection power that is in us, the Holy Spirit, because of Christ being our life and us being in him, that that physical death we experience on our last breath is like being swallowed up. By the life, it's just an explosion of life. , before we're Christians, well, the world dreads sin. They're all afraid of it. , because of the fear of punishment, because they know , that they've sinned and , , even the ones that are doing real good job, aren't quite sure if they did good enough of a job, are they? So, I just love the fact that when we come to Christ, even death itself changes in its very nature. And as the Apostle Paul said he said, the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. Christ perfectly fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law in us, fully met it in us and on our behalf. So, we don't have to look at death the same way. In fact, we don't have to look at it at all. We just look at Jesus, our life, and let's live there and camp out there. I just like that way of looking at it better than, all right, we're all going to be eternal beings. Are we going to be in hell? Are we going to be in heaven wearing white robes with wings on our backs or something? [00:13:27] Tim: So, Ajay, I'm sorry if I took your discussion and drove it down a dirt road and... [00:13:32] Ajai: No, no, no, no, no. It's good. It's good. Yeah. to further cement that, I think the point I'm making is... Jesus is our life. Unless we are in Him, we cannot have life. , that's why Bible uses several times in Christ. In Christ is not just some kind of a nice saying, but, , our union with our Lord Jesus Christ, our spirits joined with him is what being in Christ is to further cement this in John chapter 6, , the whole discourse after the Lord Jesus, , fed the 5, 000 and then he goes to the other side. Then they go after him and they ask for more miracles. In John chapter six, verse 30, they say, therefore they said to him, what sign will you perform then, that we may see it and believe you, what will you do? Our father said, manna in the desert, as it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said to him, most assuredly I say to you. Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Then he said to him, Lord, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them. So they are still thinking that he's going to give them some bread, ? Just like Moses gave manna from heaven. They're thinking, , he's going to give them bread again. Then Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. So here he is saying that, , if someone gives you bread, what do you do? You do not copy the bread. You do not imitate the bread. You do not work hard to prove that you are somebody. What do you do? You eat, right? That's what believing on the Lord Jesus Christ is. When we say we receive Lord Jesus Christ, what we are doing is we are actually eating into the Lord Jesus Christ or eating him as a bread of life. And if you go further down, it says, in John chapter six, verse 51, he says, I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, and which I shall give for the life of the world. So he's again saying clearly that, I am the bread, I am the living bread. Without me, you do not have life. And the eating we do is not literally go and cut Jesus up and eat his body. Obviously, they did not do that, but actually believing on him. When we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, We eat of him. You know, that is the identification. The Bible says, , on the last day before going to the cross, in the upper room, Jesus, he broke the bread and he said, take it, this is my body. And then he gives the blood and he says, drink from the cup. This is the blood of my new covenant. So by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, we eat of him and drink of him. But the point is, in him is life. Unless we receive Lord Jesus Christ Himself, we cannot have life. [00:16:50] Mark: Yeah, I noticed both of you earlier quoted a couple scriptures. Ajay, , yours said that Jesus said that He came that we might have life in him. And then when you Tim read John 3, 16, it says that they may have eternal life. Now, you know, we're coming down to a little word they used have, instead of give, , , instead of I came to give them, he said that they may have it in, but I, I always want to err on the side. I don't believe you can focus on Christ too much as a believer, as too much in sharing the gospel, too much in our thinking. And so, I just think that, I just see that as important at that point you made, Ajay. He didn't come to give us life, He came to be our life. <Amen>. Just like we always said, Jesus... is Christianity. Jesus is the gospel. Jesus is heaven. Jesus is the kingdom of God. When he came to earth, he preached, repent for the kingdom of God is near. Well, what came near at that time? He did. , , I just prefer to look at it that way. He is heaven. And there's even scriptures in the old test testament that say that he is our portion. He is our reward. He is our inheritance, not things he's going to give us. He himself. And that's just he himself. That's a great little two word couplet there that I'd love to have a t shirt that just said he himself, all roads lead back to him. [00:18:27] Ajai: Amen. I want to read one more scripture. Before we see, what the implication of this, if Jesus is our life, what does it mean? How do we live our Christian life? We will come to that. Just one more point. We also read this several times and it's a very well known scripture in John chapter 15, vine and the branches. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me. And I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch, and is withered, and they gather them, and throw them into the fire, and they're burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. And my Father is glorified that you may bear much fruit. Well, it goes on, but the... Point here again is, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, bear much fruit. Think of the vine and the branches, where are the branches? The branch is in the vine. And again, the vine is in the branch. The life of vine is in the branch. Unless you are in the vine, unless the branch is connected to the vine, the life of the vine will not flow through the branch. That is our relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when we talk about in Christ, we're not just talking about, Oh, I'm in this organization, in worldly speaking, Oh, I belong to country club. I am in country club. We are not talking about that. The metaphors used in the Bible are clear that it is a , literal union. Our spirits are joined with Christ through the Holy Spirit. And the Bible also clearly says, , He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. And if you read further in John chapter 17, the high priestly prayer of Lord Jesus Christ is all about oneness, our union with Him. Father, that you and I are one, that they may be one with us. And that's why he says, , I'm giving the glory that , you gave me to them, so that you may be one with us. So we do not understand this fully. Of course, you know, we are not physically joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, he will be in a separate body in all eternity because he's also a human being like us in a human body. But our spirits are joined to him through the eternal spirit, just like a husband and a wife, we are one. We do not see the union, but , once a husband and wife are married, they become one. It's a spiritual union. It's not just simply a physical agreement. And our union with Christ is much more than that. We become part of Lord Jesus Christ. That's why, , Paul talks so much about being in Christ. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. Unless you are in Christ, literally, we are not Christians. We cannot be Christians. So I guess where I'm going is, if you understand Christ is our life. That totally changes how you think in terms of how you walk the Christian life, , if Christ himself is my life and the Bible says, I have come that you may have life and life more abundantly, what does it mean? Many people think abundant life is okay. I don't have any problems in this life. I walk above my problems, , even if I have problems, , I'm joyful, okay, I'm, I don't have any debt in life, , I have good relationships. But, that's how many people think abundant life, but if Christ is our life, what is abundant life means? Having more abundant life, that you may have life and life more abundantly, that means we need to have Christ more abundant, . The more we have Christ, the more abundant life we live. That is the implication there. [00:22:22] Mark: Well, I just want to say that the Apostle Paul agrees with you because I've mentioned this before, but if you study his prayers, that's the thing in every prayer he prays for believers is that we would know God better, that we would have more of him. Eyes of our hearts would be open , to know him better, to know the hope we have. It's just all in him and it just makes sense then that the Apostle Paul, who was the primary vessel for the gospel in the New Testament in scripture, would have that heartbeat going on for believers that. It's Jesus. . He's praying for the spirit to reveal Christ to us, the spirit of wisdom and revelation to reveal that we might know God better. And Jesus is God, obviously. [00:23:13] Ajai: I'm quoting this again, , one John chapter five, he is saying that, , this is a witness that God gave us of Lord Jesus Christ. If we receive the witness of man, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God, which He testified of His Son. Again, going back to John chapter 5, the first scripture we read. The scriptures are testifying that the life is in Jesus Christ. And here it's saying the same thing. This is what God has testified of His Son. He who believes in the Son of God has a witness in himself. He who does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his son. And this is a testimony that God has given us eternal life. And this life is in his son, this eternal life is in his son. Outside of son, there's no eternal life. He who has a son has life. He who does not have the son of God does not have life. It's simple. Eternal life is in his son. in order to have that eternal life. You have to have the Son. If you have the Son, you have life. And if you do not have the Son, you do not have life. It's as simple as that. [00:24:33] Mark: I was just going to say, oh, that the world would see that, that Christ is life. <Yeah>. Because I'm just reminded once again of the proverbial guy falling off the cruise ship, drowning in the ocean. Someone throws them the life preserver ring. The life is in that ring. You don't grab it. You can't blame the ring. There's life. There's death. Choose. Christ is the light. We just need to cling to him. It's so simple and I just love that all scripture tells that one story. That Christ is our life, that's what Christianity is about, Jesus. All these traditions, whether they're old traditions or new modern church traditions and little components of the service and this and that , they're all just a sidetrack to keep us from Jesus. <Yep>. You know, we just need to focus on him, turn our eyes to him. I still love what the famous Christian writer, A. W. Tozer wrote. He said that Christianity is nothing but the gaze of the eyes of our soul on our savior. When we look at him and hold to him, we've got life. We don't have to , get better at anything. We don't have to read more scripture. , scripture is meant to take us into his arms, into that relationship, into that life. <Yeah>. So , it's simple. I'm not saying , it's easy because we have a lot of distractions in this life. Even when we go to church, we have people trying to get our eyes off of Christ, get them on ourselves, start working harder, pulling our bootstraps up, fulfilling the message this week, whatever they're teaching us and cheerleading us and guilting us into doing. They're just trying to get us back on the hamster wheel. And no matter how fast you run, that hamster wheel's not gonna take you to Jesus. He wants you to jump off the hamster wheel and come straight to Him. [00:26:36] Ajai: I want to quickly look at the implications on Christian life. we want to live this Christian life. We want to be a good Christian, , like we said at the beginning. Or if you want to have abundant life. If Jesus himself is life, if he's the bread of life. What do we do in Christian life? , someone gives us bread, and the only thing we can do if someone gives you bread, and if you know that that gives you life and energy, the only thing you can do is eat, that's what we do. The more we eat of Christ, and that is only by faith, the more life we have. , the bread is not given. If someone gives you bread, and then you are on the side, okay. Look at me, how righteous I am. Okay, I'll do some more works to show me how righteous I am. You're not having life, , or you can say, okay, you give Jesus, you, someone gives you bread of life and you're saying, okay, I'm going to pretend like bread. I'm going to imitate. I'm going to the disciple of that bread. That's not going to do any good. And if someone gives you a bread of life and you say, okay, I'll make promises. to do better next time. You're not going to get the benefit from life. The only thing you can do to take advantage of the bread is to eat. That's all we do. , , , the Bible says, the words that I speak to you are life. , in the same chapter, Lord Jesus said, , the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. So what do we do again? , it goes back to the scriptures. When we go to scriptures, We don't go to like Mark, you were saying at the beginning, they're not good stories, right? , some people say, , there to be a Daniel. That's a good intention, ? But what they say is, okay, look at what Daniel did in the Old Testament. Try to behave like that in a situation. When you run into a situation like Daniel's, Oh, look what David did. He fought with Goliath. Okay. You also have all these are now we don't have real Goliath, but all these things that are coming at us are Goliaths. So you fight, right? You can do all these things, but you're not getting life. The whole scriptures... is a testimony of Jesus that in this man called Jesus Christ, there is life. And if you have Jesus, you have life. And if you don't have Jesus, you don't have life. So even after believing, even after becoming Christians, the way we receive life is searching for Jesus in the scriptures. His word becomes our life. Because in Hebrews chapter four, it says, The Word of God is living and powerful, like a two edged sword. So the more we see Jesus in the Scriptures, the more we understand this whole Scriptures is about Jesus, and the more we look at Him, His death, His burial, and His resurrection, and the more we look at the person of Jesus Christ, the more life we have. And that is how we eat of our Lord Jesus Christ through the scriptures and through His word [00:29:39] Mark: So as you're speaking Ajay, a couple scriptures jumped out at me as people scurry around busy. Christians do this, do that, don't do that. Jesus in the midst of their busyness says to them, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened. We also know the story of the sisters Mary and Martha. Where Jesus came to their home Mary sat at his feet and Martha's busy working around the house trying to serve Jesus. Do this for Jesus. Yeah, I gotta get Jesus food. I gotta wash his feet. I do all this stuff. , and she says to Jesus, look at Mary. She's just sitting there at your feet, listening to you. Tell her to get to work. And he's like, , she's chosen. Well, she told chosen the better thing. Only one thing is needed. And she was doing that. And then as I looked up Matthew 11 28, come to me. All you are weary. I was blown away. Do you know how many times in scripture? It says, come to me. Now, I haven't had a chance to read through those 339 because I just did that search right now. But that phrase is used 339 times. Come to me. And even though I haven't got through to see, , someone might have, it might have been King David saying to his wife, come to me, , or whatever. But still, out of 339, we know that in Isaiah, God said, come to me and eat. And I will give you food, , so come to me is a theme through scripture. It's not go over there and start working and doing this, do that, do this. That's the reason I created you. No, you were created to come to me. [00:31:21] Ajai: Yeah. Mark, you said, come to me and eat, , that's what Jesus is also saying. Come to me, and eat from me, and drink from me. I am the bread of life, and I am the living waters. And all you need today is come. and the scripture says in many ways how to eat and drink. It's all by faith, . It says, , receiving, believing, seeing, beholding. Tim, what you said, , , Christ lives in me. That ties with that, our Christian life is not us trying to imitate God or imitate Christ or making promises, but simply living off of Christ. You know, when we receive Christ, He lives His life in us. [00:31:59] Mark: Tim, why don't you share again your illustration about the words conform and transform? [00:32:05] Tim: Feel like I've beaten that to death recently. [00:32:08] Mark: I'll say it if you don't want, but I think it's your thing. You've got the royalties on that one, so I'm going to toss it to you. [00:32:14] Tim: So I've been studying a little bit recently and I got hung up on this, I don't know, a couple episodes back where I kind of blundered into saying that the difference between conforming and transforming is conforming is what we do to give ourselves the exterior image of whatever it is we're trying to conform to, in this case, Christianity. So we want to make people see us as loving and kind and all these things. Transforming is what happens to us when we're saved and we take in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit literally changes us from the inside out. It's not something we have any control over. It's not something we do. It's an operation done on us. [00:32:55] Mark: Yeah I love that difference. And the Christian religion tells us that we need to conform. We need to conform to this list of rules. We need to conform to doing this, to not doing this. We need to conform to this picture of Christianity, all these tenets and beliefs and rules. But Christ himself, who is true Christianity. Who is the one true gospel wants to transform us. All we do is come to him, hold on to him. He is our life as we do that. He does the transforming. I don't know about you. That sounds like a much more enjoyable and profitable experience. Then me trying to conform myself to a list of rules that this pastor or that pastor or that organization or whatever tells me I need to conform myself. That's not the rest. That's what Jesus is calling us out of to come to him and rest in him. [00:34:01] Tim: This comes out of romans 12. 2 in a very concise verse that says, Do not conform to the pattern of this world. In other words, don't work to make yourself conform to whatever it is you're seeing in the world. Even if it's, I mean, I think it even means if it's a good example, you might see someone and say, Oh we just talked about this a few minutes ago before the episode, Mark. Oh, he's a really good Christian. I want to be more like him. I want to make myself look like him. Don't conform yourself to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, the good, pleasing, and perfect will. So, , it's, Pretty clearly put there that it's that act versus a change that that's wrought upon you so to speak [00:34:51] Mark: Can you read just of it the beginning of that scripture one more time do not conform part? [00:34:56] Tim: Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind [00:35:03] Mark: and just to back up what you said, think about the way that wording is. Do not conform to the pattern of this world. That's something we do. Be transformed. That's something we receive. There's just even with the word transform and conform, beyond that, the words that are in context around those words, only further drive that point home. Conforming is something we do. Being transformed is something that happens to us as we rest in Christ. [00:35:35] Ajai: Yeah, the key word there for transformation is, it says, Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. , that's what is going on today, ? For many, I believe this is a renewal of mind that is happening, that Christ himself is our life. He himself is an abundant life. The more we just rest in Christ, the more we receive, the more we eat and drink from Christ through his word, the more transformation happens in us. [00:36:09] Mark: And it doesn't just have to be through scripture. My mind is renewed by worship music. Some people's mind is renewed by going. on a walk in nature, just praying to God. We all have our own specific ways that God has wired us , it's all the same at the heart of it, though it's turning our eyes to Christ, whether it's through music, whether it's through His Word, whether it's through listening to a Christian podcast, or just talking with another person that understands the gospel, , it's bringing us to Christ and that's where our renewal is. [00:36:43] Tim: this certainly Didn't go where I expected it to go when I opened it, but that's great because it's been some wonderful truths that we're bringing up And I think there's some really good points that have been made. However, comma, we cannot go on forever So I want to give you guys an opportunity to do a summary before we close the episode. Mark, why don't you start us? Well, I'm just, I don't know if this is the perfect scripture for this, but it's the one that jumped into my mind And since Jesus told us that he gave us his spirit to remind us of the things he said, I'm just going to trust that the spirit is reminding me of this scripture and I'm going to read it and hopefully he's going to, between the three of us, show us what he wants us to see. Titus three four, but when the kindness and love of God, God, our savior appeared, he saved us not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. I just love the part there as we were talking about the renewing of our mind that we've been washed by by our rebirth. And by our renewal of our minds comes by the Holy Spirit. And I loved what you said before, Ajay, that it's through the Spirit that we have our union with Christ. That that's how we are bound to him, and that's how we get our life from him. And, and that's why I also love that many times Paul talks about the Spirit as being a guarantee. We're seals in him and the Holy Spirit, Paul said. He said that he's given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. When we take our last breath here, it is guaranteed that we are in Christ's life. There's no, you don't have to worry about it. Am I going to lose my salvation? If you put your faith in Christ, you've been given the Spirit. No one can take that from you. And it also says that it's a guarantee of the riches of our glorious inheritance in Christ. Just, , the life of Christ in us through His Spirit. [00:39:10] Ajai: AMEN. Yeah, Mark, what you just said ties very nicely into the Scripture that I was going to read. So in John chapter 6, after Jesus says, I am the bread of life. And then he says, , you have to eat my flesh and you have to drink my blood. And some of them got very upset and others are like, , they felt like, what is this? , do we need to cut you up and eat? Then he clarifies in verse 63, It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life. So, The way we receive this life is simply hearing the Word of Christ. The Bible says faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of Christ. We're not simply talking, some translations say Word of God, but it's actually the Word of Christ, the Word about Christ. So the more we hear about Our Lord Jesus Christ, the more we hear about His finished work, the more life we will have, and the more we participate. in the very life of our Lord Jesus Christ. All we need to do is, again, look to Lord Jesus Christ and see Him as our life and see Him as our everything, and then His life, , effortlessly flows in us. [00:40:25] Tim: In Philippians 1:21, it says, For me to live is Christ. And that was one of the verses that I had kind of Jump into my brain before we started this and we said Christ our life and he is he's our life in so many different ways That's the thing about scripture being alive There are sometimes many levels and layers to what the words are on the page and Christ reveals to you As you mature and can handle those things and that's why we continue to encourage our listeners being in the word Read these things for yourselves mark likes to tell us that we need to reflect upon the Word and that's what we should be doing because it opens us up to it and to Christ more and more and more, and that's what we've been saying. We'd like to thank you all for listening yet again, and we look forward to talking to you again... the next time.