Resurrection 11 Return to Reality in Every Next Moment

[HKHaugan]

Remember those realities we talked about when we looked at our humanity apart from God? Let’s revisit them for a moment.

The first reality we all share is self-consciousness.
The second reality we all share is our physicality.
The third reality we share with every other human being is being alone.
The fourth reality we all share is relationships.
The fifth reality we all share is having a common material environment.
The sixth reality we all share is community.
The seventh reality we all share is processing our experience, managing what we
sense, feel and see.
The eighth reality is belief.
The ninth reality is needs.
The tenth reality involves prioritizing our needs.
The eleventh reality follows, loss of intimacy with God.
The twelfth reality is combined fear and pride, the result of the loss of intimacy with God.
The thirteenth reality following on the heels of fear is a moral sense.
A fourteenth reality we all share is a need to blame.
A fifteenth reality we all share is the need to hide.
A sixteenth reality is safety zones.
A seventeenth reality is we are always searching for perfect relationships.
The eighteenth reality that sums it all up and must be faced finally is spiritual reality.

One way or the other when you get down to making choices of any kind, all of the above reality kicks in. The basis, the foundation, the core of who we are in the raw is the reality that rises to the surface. Every next moment is a moment of decision. That’s human reality. It’s our personal reality and that personal reality shares a common ground with every person ever born. Personal reality is where we are, who we are, why we are and how we respond. Each of us is a unique blend of those above-mentioned realities.

Note quickly how this personal reality locates us not in the visible but in the invisible. The choice-decision process places us in the arena of what we believe, who we trust and where we place our faith, all invisible. Our life goes on moment by moment. Like the tide the process doesn’t stop. If every next moment describes us, what is the character, the shape and the composite portrait we see?

If we ponder too long we will find ourselves ‘navel-gazing,’ treading water and like many philosophers, just weary with the inner trek, resolving the dilemma with a brooding intellectual inconclusiveness. There is no answer but to plod on day-by-day putting off the inevitable. It is that 18th reality, spiritual reality, which offers the only solution to freeing us from the intense gutless self-absorption into which sin has led us.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ comes like a tornado, a hurricane and a flash of lightning to take us out of the depths of self-agony into the light of day. We see in Jesus a person who stands out in the crowd, touches the heart, challenges the mind, grabs at our spirit and probes the very core of who we are. Like a glaring searchlight His presence exposes the shabby and fragile structure we have built on the shifting sands of pride and fear. The invisible becomes visible in our minds and we know in our hearts we have been pulled out of the hovels of our past and taken into a mansion of perfection that is Jesus. Like a magnet He draws the bits and pieces of our brokenness into the shower of His love and forgiveness erasing their shoddy connections. His Cross places them in the backyard of our memory as trophies reminding us of His forgiveness. They no longer power guilt, regret and remorse, only the honesty His Spirit provides. Our mind, our heart and spirit shift their gaze to Him. He becomes the focus of our invisible reality.

He is the reality that overcomes the fallen reality that is the world. His Cross, His grace, His faith, His mercy and compassion draw us out of ourselves to Him and in Him we are rebuilt. He is the rock upon which we stand, we build and we move forward in every next moment. From survival to adventure, from weakness to strength, from insecurity to confidence, from fear to love, from aloneness to relationship, each day, each moment becomes an opportunity to seize, to squeeze and to please. Seize the moment; squeeze every ounce of its potential and please the Lord who has given us His Spirit to live to the fullest. Now that’s reality, reality in every next moment.

“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of] your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant (Col.1:21-23).”

More…stay tuned……..