To live is Christ

I was reading Psalm 15 last week, and I was struck by verses 1-2:

Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle?… He who… speaks the truth in his heart.

And the context of the psalm is all about righteousness. The rest of the phrases are challenging…

He who walks uprightly, and works righteousness… He who does not backbite with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor does he take up a reproach against his friend…

Again, they are challenging words, but they did not stand out to me this reading. They did not surprise me. What surprised me was the line about one who “speaks the truth in his heart.”

Part of righteousness is being honest, even with yourself. This seems much more internal than anything else in that psalm.  It made me wonder about the lies I tell myself, even if I only say them in my heart. Sometimes I think I don’t even consciously allow the ideas to form in my mind. I just live with them. I live out of the lies. And it’s unrighteous!

The lie that the Lord brought to the forefront was this sense I’ve subconsciously had that, somehow, I’m too spiritually needy.  And the truth I must become really convinced of, the truth I must speak in my heart, is that I am not nearly needy enough.

God gently showed me that I’ve had an unidentified assumption that God is like a person, with limitations. In some ways I’ve lived based on the idea that I might pester God, bother Him, or be too needy. I guess I really try to avoid that with people. I don’t ask for help too much, I don’t assume you want to hang out, and I try to be relatively self-reliant; I don’t want to be a burden.

OK, so yeah, Sunday School answers should have taught me a long time ago that I should be worried about anything but depending too much on God. Of course I’ve been taught to be dependent on God. Jesus teaches us to abide in Him, ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking. Throughout the bible are references to seeking God with your whole heart. Paul says everything that was gain, he counts as loss. And he says, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

To live is Christ.

How much more needy can we get?

I think I’ve heard that verse so frequently, I’ve rolled right by it in the past. This time around, when we went through Philippians in my women’s bible study, I got stuck on that verse.  What does it mean “to live is Christ”? It’s a strange construction. We can’t say, “To live is Jane Doe,” or “To live is Stephanie.”  It makes no sense. It falls flat.

So what is “to live”? With a little help from my friend the dictionary…

• to exist
• to breathe
• to wake
• to sleep
• to eat
• to drink
• to survive
• to dwell
• to cohabit
• to experience
• to enjoy
• to spend time
• to guide yourself
• to relate
• … to LIVE

IS. CHRIST.

I think the point to me was that I really am desperate for God’s presence. I am really good at filling the vacuum, usually without recognizing it. But if I’m not in Christ’s presence am I…

• withered?
• drowned?
• exhausted?
• restless?
• starved?
• dying of thirst?
• injured?
• homeless?
• wandering?
• lonely?
• numb?
• depressed?
• lost?
• purposeless?
• isolated?
• … DEAD?

I know that without Christ I am dead in my sins… But is it real? Is it visceral? Do I feel starved without Christ? If not, maybe something’s WRONG. Maybe I’m a long way down the road of telling myself I don’t need Him.

Which, frankly, is ridiculous! Can I make my neurons fire? my lungs work? my heart beat? Can I create emotions in myself? Love, joy, peace, even fun? Can I accomplish anything meaningful?  Of course. No.

To life!