Cheap Life

This past Monday I was enjoying a tradition celebrated by Christian ministers since the early days of the faith. I was sleeping in on Easter Monday. After a weeks worth Lenten celebration both (somber and joyous) and a particularly grueling Easter Sunday, I was tired and hoping to take advantage of my day home with Logan to sleep a little late . Well, at 9:30 the phone rang and my peace was disturbed.

It was my doctor and she had the results from my blood work. She explained that someone with my heart history (I have had several heart problems since I was born) should not have cholesterol as high as mine. She continued to explain that no one should have cholesterol as high as mine and further that any one with my numbers would eventually end up with heart disease. Let’s just say that my cholesterol starts with a “3”.

But if you know me at all extremely high cholesterol wouldn’t surprise you. Everybody that knows me knows that I love to eat. I went on mission trips to India and Africa and actually gained weight. I love food from any culture or style there is not a food that I cannot eat. And when the doctor’s call came in I wasn’t surprised but her message did change me.

Everything she said was right and even expected it was not the first time I had heard it either. My last doctor gave me the same message and I never went back to him but something was different this time. Not the message but the timing.

I had just finished celebrating Easter. Christ died so that I could live. I have had multiple open heart surgeries, and walked away with no restriction and able to live a normal live after each one. God has blessed me with a healing and I have taking it for granted abusing the very parts of me that God has healed.

Yet I am not alone in my guilt. Christ died so that we his might live and yet we in his church often take his death for granted simply assuming that God will always be there to bail us out of what ever our self destructive behavior has gotten us into this time.

In Paul’s letter to the Romans he addresses this issue: Romans 6:1-4

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

My prayer is that we would seek and find a new life in Christ now. Christianity isn’t about getting to heaven it’s about become new creations and enjoy a new abundant life in Christ.

I and as i wrote the first part of this i was enjoying the most amzing piece of Red Snapper on brown rice. Becoming Healthy its not as bad as i thought.