What Does It Mean To Live Fully Alive In Christ?

“You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.” – Colossians 2:13-14.

Many years ago, there was a television commercial promoting beer. The commercial featured several young people precariously perched on a catamaran sailing through the water. As spray hit the lens of the camera, a dramatic voice announced, “You only go around once! Reach for all the gusto you can get.” The ad played on two truths that motivate every human being: we have only one life to live and we want to live that life with gusto. Both of those truths are talked about in scripture.

God wants us to live life with gusto. He so longs to see us flourishing, thriving, truly living. We are His beloved children, and so when we trudge through life weighed down by negative thoughts, or race through our days with stress as our main fuel, or simply exist because we don’t know what more is available to us, we are not living the life God intended for us. Moses had this to say just before he died: “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

What does it mean to be alive in Christ? It does not mean that you must have your life together. Being alive in Christ does not mean that you are happy all the time. It does not mean that your life is as beautiful and put-together as a Hallmark movie.

In fact, being alive in Christ means the opposite. A fully alive life requires a fully-experienced life. Without joy and sorrow, peace and turmoil, happiness and despair, you cannot fully appreciate anyone’s experience. For a life to be fully lived it must be experienced in every extreme. The extent to which we are capable of experiencing great disappointment and pain is also the extent to which we have the capacity to experience the greatest joy. God is at work in the mundane, and the everyday messiness of our lives. Being alive in Christ does not mean we will be in a constant state of smiles and joy. Being alive in Christ means our foundation is so strong that even when the storms come, we can live through them.

Take a moment right now to remember that Christ invites you to live a life in Him. Know that, in Christ, your feet are firmly planted on an unshakable foundation: Christ’s unconditional love for you. Jesus promised us, “…Look, I am making everything new…” (Revelation 21:5)

The question is do we choose to be fully alive?

Discussion Questions:

What does being “fully alive in Christ” mean to you?