“To live is Christ” means you are no longer separated from God. And it means you are separated from those who are not yet in Christ. But not so that you can stay separated. We have been brought out of the world so that we could be sent back into the world. Not hiding behind our convictions. But living from the conviction that the gospel alone can unite all mankind.
“To live is Christ” takes us moment by moment, day by day, through the life changing worship experience of Isaiah. Holy – Woe – Cleansed – Go. This is the pattern of all true worship and the process of all true change. A process we can now embrace, for Jesus has already taken away all our guilt and atoned for all our sins.
“To live is Christ” makes you and me the sanctuary-tabernacle of God. The meeting place of holiness and mercy. Separate from the world in Christ’s holiness. Connected to the world in his mercy. God dwelling in the midst of humanity in us.
“To live is Christ” means our unholiness and shame collided with God’s holiness and love and God won. Both his holiness and his love remain, just like at the bottom of Mount Sinai. How? Because Christ in us is the perfect collision of God’s holiness and love now destroying all guilt and covering all shame and leaving only his righteousness and grace in its place in our hearts. No more “get away from me, God.” No more Jonahs. No more fig leaves. Just Christ’s perfect grace on display in us for the world to see.
Zechariah 3:1-10. Then he [the angel] showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand
1 Chronicles 21:1-22:1. Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and the commanders of the
