Real Life

GETTING STARTED

There is a movie from years back called Heaven Can Wait. It’s the story of a pro football quarterback who comes back to life in the body of a recently murdered millionaire. Suddenly, this millionaire has the athletic abilities of a pro athlete. How can an “average joe” athletically become an elite athlete? According to the movie, only if someone who is an elite athlete now lives in his body. This is a good picture of what Paul is describing in today’s verses. If we have given our life to Christ, Paul says Christ is in us. It’s still our body, but there is a new life, with new power, in our body.

  • Is there a struggle in your life that causes fear, guilt, hostility, or emptiness? How amazing would it be to suddenly have the power to overcome that struggle?

READ THE WORD: ROMANS 8:9-13 (ESV)

9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesusfrom the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

DIGGING DEEPER

  1. What are the three “if” references in verses 9-11? What do they appear to be describing?
  2. In verse 10, what is the cause of death? What is the cause of life?
  3. What power is being described in verse 11?
  4. What does it mean to be a debtor (vs. 12)?
  5. Any ideas on how to describe the “death” Paul talks about in these verses? How about a description of “life”?

RESPOND TO GOD

If you are a follower of Christ, you are different because Christ lives in you. Any changes in your life are a result of this primary truth. Without this indwelling, the body is dead—not physically, but death shows itself in many ways, and might be summarized as fear, guilt, hostility, and emptiness. Contrast that to life, which shows itself in hope, acceptance, love, and fulfillment. The body has no hold or control over us anymore. It doesn’t have a hold on us because we have the same power in us that raised Jesus from the dead, but only because Christ lives in us. That resurrection power allows us to choose to live differently.

  • Rejoice in knowing that God actually takes up residence in us, if we ask him, and gives us new ways to experience real life with the same power that raised him from the dead.