If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. (1 Cor. 15:14)
Even if the Spirit never spoke to you again, Jesus’ example would give you enough to work on until you died. Few of us are excellent at forgiving, healing, working for justice, serving the poor, welcoming the children, and reframing religion for those on the margins. Even fewer of us live the kind of “open life” that Christ did, free from attachment to possessions or a heightened sense of importance.
But Paul is reminding us here that God invites us to something much better than a dead Christ who can serve as a “template” for living. Instead, the Holy Spirit invites us to take on Christ’s way of being human. Day by day, we are renewed in our heart, character, and habits by a relationship with the living Christ. God is active; Christ is alive. In Christ’s resurrection, we learn that eternal life is not just something we inherit when we die. It’s a way of living now that takes on the habits of heaven.
The reason our faith is shown to be useful, not “useless,” as Paul says, is because Christ’s life brings new life to us. God’s voice may be more subtle than we would like; his purposes may be less clear than we would hope. Yet in quiet, subtle ways, the living Christ continues making us new.
Remember a time when you’ve seen God at work.
Ethan Linder is the pastor of collegians and young adults at College Wesleyan Church (IN) and contributing editor for Education & Clergy Development of The Wesleyan Church.
© 2022 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
