“Lord Jesus, we pray that we will appreciate Your life. We live in You and have our being in You. In Your name, we pray. Amen.”
Peter and John are explaining the healing of the lame man to this Jewish crowd. Acts 3:14-16 But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, (15) and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. (16) And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
They are placing on this crowd, the responsibility of killing the Prince of life. Jesus is the Prince of life. John 5:26 For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself,
We generally consider life as the physical life that we are living. We have several parameters by which we affirm to ourselves that we or others around us are alive.
Life, that is truly life is the life that comes from God. God breathed into the nostrils of man and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
This living experience of man was not only the physical life but this was the life of God, lived out by man. God breathed His Spirit into the nostrils of man and man became alive. Job 33:4 The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
God gave of Himself to man. He breathed His life into man. Man went about in the life of God. This life that man received, in the beginning, was life in all its fullness. This was the Shalom life, where we were in the habitat of God. We were one with God and His breath was flowing through us. God longs that we as His church, His bride, should be in the oneness relationship with Him, where His life flows in and through us.
We were rightly related to God. We were rightly related within ourselves. We were rightly related to one another and so we had family and community. We were also rightly related to God’s creation as the vice-regents of God, executing God’s rule over His creation. We were growing into His image through obedience to His word.
This was the total flourishing or the Shalom experience of being in His kingdom.
This life that we had, in the beginning, is what we lost because of sin. When we say the wages of sin is death, we must know what we mean. We are not just implying physical death. We are speaking of the Shalom life that we lost and that now we are in this terrible state of death.
The work of Jesus on the cross is to bring man, who is dead, back to life. God, in Christ, is bringing man back to the original state in which we were created. The original state of experiencing His Shalom by being in His habitat. This is our mission here on earth, as His church. We are bringing dead people back to life, in Christ.
Jesus came to give us life. John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The life of Jesus is the light of men. Without Jesus, man is groping in darkness.
Jesus, not only has life but He gives us His life. I Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, “THE FIRST MAN ADAM BECAME A LIVING BEING.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
This is what the Lord told the woman at the well. John 4:13-14 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, (14) but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
She could not understand what He was telling her. It took her a while for the truth to register, but she received the life of Jesus.
Jesus longs for man to come and drink from Him the water of life. Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
Man, who is in a state of death must be resurrected and brought to life. This is the task for which Jesus came onto the earth. He came to give us life and that abundantly. John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
The thief, the devil, brought death on us but Jesus has resurrected us from death and He gives us life, in Him.
We, as His church, must live out the life of Jesus by being in the oneness relationship with Him and also bring others to the fullness of life in Christ.