"We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."                       2 Corin. 4:18

I love thinking about eternal reality, what is true in the eternal realm!  In the eternal scope of things, we all died and rose with Christ and are in resurrection life right now, even while on this visible earth:

In Adam, all died, because all sinned. Sin entered the world..I think about that – sin entered this realm of matter – I love how it DOESN’T say sin entered humans but that it entered the world! We are born innocent and pure and good, because we are in God’s image, yet we are born into a poisoned environment, and the sin in this world affects us..we hear and succumb to lies about ourselves, lies that we hear through the world, other people, the enemy and the traditions passed down to us from our elders at church and other institutions that run on performance and legalism and conditional acceptance…and we eventually choose sin, we live as so much less than we are, we do very real wrong acts that hurt ourselves and others, we struggle with feelings of unworth and alienation from God, we succumb to self-judgment, feel the need to punish ourselves, can’t handle the shame and pain of who we think we are and all that we’ve done, open ourselves up to evil’s reign, to death. Yet Jesus comes and absorbs all the judgment, shame, pain and guilt we feel; He absorbs it all into Himself, and though He doesn’t need to punish us in order to feel okay with us, He understands that our performance way of thinking makes us feel someone needs to pay for our sins, and so He absorbs those sins and becomes that for us so that we can feel okay with ourselves and feel at ease about approaching God. He takes down sin and guilt and judgment with Him into the grave, and since we are included and connected with Him in all He does, that is also our death to sin and guilt and judgment. They are once and forever separated from us and us from them! Thus He takes away our sin and judgment! We are free!

Yet He does something even more wonderful in the resurrection: In Christ, all are made alive! Christ was raised because of our justification – our righteousness! He vindicates our righteousness through His resurrection! When the sin and lying identity, the fake man that never was the real us, is put down through His death, the innocent original self that we really are is revealed, righteous and pure and good! And since you can’t keep a good man down, Jesus cannot be kept down in the grave, and neither can we! Death has no hold on Him, there is no sin on Him that would lead to death, and no law or performance way of thinking there to demand death anyway, for that whole system has also been set aside and separated from Him and us at His death. So there is nothing to keep Christ – or us – in the grave! So His resurrection is proof of my innocence, proof that my original self God created is and was always good, pure and right in His eyes, fit for relationship with Him, compatible with Him, in His image of love and thus a love being just like Himself! Wow!

How can we be sure that all that He went through includes us, that we also went through all that – how can we be sure that just as He died to sin, so did we, and just as He was raised and now lives to God, is alive to God, so are we? I love how Andre Rabe talks about electron entanglement, how since everything has a common origin or source, everything is still connected and touching! We are all entangled with Him, because He is our source, creator and origin! We flow out from Him like little electrons, always bearing His charge, always attracted back to Him, always oriented toward and with Him, forever intertwined with Him, our destinies connected with His, so whatever He does and whatever happens to Him has an effect on us in an ultimate way! This helps me so much in understanding how what Jesus went through is also what we went through. I love how my connection with Jesus is prior to and thus stronger than my connection with Adam, for Jesus made me and thus for my life, all that He does trumps all the effects of what Adam did! I love being tied like this to Jesus! I love that my connection with Him is waaay stronger than any connection with Adam or with sin/lies! I love how He has carried me everywhere that He Himself has gone – through death and into the grave, and then up from the grave and into resurrection life!

I love what my friend Andrea says, that 'resurrection life now' means just “being the ones we truly are!” Resurrection life isn’t something to try to attain to, something that is so super-spiritual that it feels unreachable except for the ‘really committed’ – it’s what we all are in already, all gathered up in Him!! Wow, it’s not something to reach for (as if there is distance and delay involved) but something to sink into and enjoy, as in enjoying the soft chair you have already been put in or enjoying the party you are already at! I have spent my whole life feeling I need to do or be ‘more’, feeling like I was always ‘not there yet,’ but what a joy to find I am already there, already fine! It reminds me of a quote by Dan Stone in his book, The Rest of the Gospel: “You are all you were ever meant to be: one with the One who is Life!”

What a wonderful life we already have with Him, what wonderful relief and rest to already be in LIFE! We’re in Life and we’re never going out! He takes off every bit of strain, stress and pressure to ‘do’ or ‘attain’ anything..There is not even one thing left to do, even believing doesn’t make anything happen, for it ALL already happened, didn’t it! He has done it ALL, all is safe and all is well, all are home, all are alive in Him! Faith must be simply spiritual sight, then, not making something happen but seeing what’s already happened, seeing this eternal and really real reality that may still be partly invisible yet is truly real!

So what do we see with the eyes of our spirit?  What is in this really real yet partly invisible reality?  Well, it’s such a wonderful fresh world over here in this eternal realm! Instead of spiraling ever downward into decay from sin and its effects , I am spiraling ever upward into real abundant flourishing from His life and its effects! His life has the final word in my life, not any sin or lies! The fake identity is shown to be nothing and the true identity is free to flourish! I am not judged on performance but instead freely accepted by grace, for law is not holding sway here, grace is! I can fail and still be just as loved, accepted, included, and right with God as ever, for this is a place of secure love given from a Father to His children, not a place of a servant working for a Boss, with his position in jeopardy at any time. This is a place of oneness, not duality or separation. This is a place where we don’t have to think of sin or good and evil but where there is simply the enjoyment of union relationship with Him! This is a place of Love, not Fear. A place of truth, not lies. A place where God has already conquered death and the grave, lies and the curse, so what is there to worry about, for all will come out well! This is the place of freedom, not restriction. This is the place of BEING, not trying to become good or trying to stop becoming bad. This is the place of fullness, not longing. This is the place of rest, not struggle. This is the place of completion, not feelings of inferiority. This is the place of union, not separation. This is the place where Jesus IS, and I AM in Him, tucked forever with Him into the Father’s bosom, saturated with the Holy Spirit, caught up in the fellowship dance of the Trinity! This is the place of Resurrection Life NOW!