Cherishing oneness with Christ

“We hold …[a] treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor 4:7).  Because Christ lives and breathes and moves within us and we in Him, we are “always carrying about in…[our bodies] the dying of Jesus,  so that  the life of Jesus…[His rising is also]  manifested in our [bodies]” (2 Cor: 4: 5-6). What does the dying and rising with Christ look like in our daily lives?  Every day, like James and John in today’s Gospel, we are faced with the temptation to be looking for that which this world deems essential to our well-being—getting  privileges,  lording it over others, being number 1, etc. and/or  we come face to face with sin in us, that is, with our envy, jealousy, deceitfulness, pride, selfishness , sloth or unjustified anger.  Dying means not giving life to these tendencies, letting them die, and rising to new life in Christ Jesus.  Thus, when we encounter sufferings that come with dealing with the worst in human nature, that which is not of God, we have two choices: 1) to traverse the most travelled road or 2) to choose the least traveled road where we are transformed into Christ by the purifying fire ignited by the suffering itself, embracing the pain, addressing it and resolving it as Christ resolved it:  through love, forgiveness,  and reconciliation with those with whom we are at odds.   Living in this way, our lives “cause… thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God’( 2 Cor 4: 15).   Transformed into Christ by what we suffer in living a life for and with God, “…the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and place us…in his presence” (2 Cor 4:14).

Am I willing to live life on this level of meaning and with this kind of faith?