What is "life"?

I want us to think hard about what "life" is.  Our answer to this questions really shapes us and our experiences as a human being.  I believe that most of my time here on this planet I have been answering this question deistically.  Let me explain.

If we view life as our experience of time and the events that occur within it, we are not approaching "life" any differently than a rock or a flower, because they also "experience" time and events, in that time and events march forward around them and affect them and change them.  We are no more alive than they are in that sense, and no less.  When we think of life in this way, as the motion forward of time and our experience of events and moments and feelings and biological existence, how do we view God?  He becomes the mover of that "life", and perhaps one more experience and mover of our "life".  He is an outside actor influencing us, and nothing more.  He might be a great influencer and very important to us, but that is all He can ever be if our framework for life looks like this.  This is a deistic view of God.  While we may see Him as personal, He is interpreted as only another great influencer of our "life".  Everything about what we believe "life" is simply goes forward whether He speaks or not.  You see, He is just an add-on in this way of seeing.

Jesus said many things that touch on this, but unless we reorient our understanding of "life", we will miss what He said.  We must let His words rock us to the core.  I am going to quote several verses, and then you put these up against the former definition I discussed.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life." John 14:6  If life is simply our experience, this makes no sense.  Life is a person, a particular person, Jesus the messiah, the second person of the Trinity.  It is not an experience or event or biological process, it is HIM.

"This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent." John 17:3  A very clear definition that life is knowing God and His Son.  Life is a personal relationship, not deistic, that centers on knowing God.  To have "life", we must have a knowing of God, and of Jesus.

"I am the bread of life."  John 6:35    We must "feed" on Him to have life; we must draw life from Him.  It is not external to Him anymore than the nourishment of bread is external to it.

""I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." John 5:24  The only way to enter into life begins by hearing His voice and entering that vital personal experience with Him.  Otherwise we have no life; we are dead.

"I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself." John 5:25-26  Jesus has life in Him, as does His Father. 

"And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life." 1 John 5:11-12  Without Him we have NO life.

"You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." John 5:39-40  We must absolutely go to Jesus to have "life."  There is no other way.  Any talk of finding eternal life apart from Him is meaningless.

"For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him."  1 Thess. 5:9-10  Heaven and eternal life are being with Jesus.  Just as life here is not in our experience of time or biological activity, eternal life is not an endless experience of that either: eternal life is an ongoing experience of Jesus.

"Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;  and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26  Jesus Himself is life, and if we believe in Him, death itself does not take "life" from us, because it cannot take Him.

People who do not know God experience existence, but they do not have life.  They are dead.  And they will know this deadness forever.  O Lord, have mercy on the people of this world so they might see your Son and hear His voice now before it is too late.

Life is Jesus.  Life is knowing (in experience) God.  Life is knowing (in experience) Jesus.  It is a personal union and experience of and with the one true God.  

One of the reasons I have been so up and down in my "life" is that I have viewed "it" wrong.  Going through a day has been about the endless 24 hour cycle.  This is not life.  And so I have been buffeted by every experience and event and activity around me.  This has changed, and is changing, now.  Life is Jesus.  So instead of my going through a "life", life is in me and I know Him, who is life.  These other things are simply the backdrop for my experience of Him.  They are what I walk in as I walk with Him.  I think it used to be vica versa.  He was the backdrop as I experienced events and activities.  And when it was that way, my view of Him could change with the weather, so to speak.

If you ever read John chapter 10, read it with these other verses in mind.  I will finish these thoughts with a quote from that chapter, and then a few comments: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10  Amen Jesus, let me have YOU to the full.  The thief is not looking to make "life" hard, but to steal us from Him, to kill our union with Him, to destroy us from ever knowing Him.  And Jesus wants us to have Him in fullness.  This is what He meant.  He did NOT mean that we should have happiness (unless we know that is in HIM) nor ease nor great experiences of time and biology; He meant and means for us to have HIM.  O Lord, make it so.

So tomorrow, when I get up, I get to experience Jesus some more during my waking hours.  I get Him.  He is no longer just in my life tomorrow.  He is my life .  I won't endure Him to have 24 hours tomorrow of life.  I have Him tomorrow, and if He wills, 24 hours will pass while I walk with Him and experience life in Him.  And His wonderful love and goodness I get to know and enjoy.   Thank you Jesus, for opening my eyes, to this reality that centers in you.