What Is the Resurrected Life and How Do I Live it?

April 19, 2022

What Is the Resurrected Life and How Do I Live it?

By Brooke Holt

The resurrection of Jesus Christ changed everything. In an instant, a cosmic metamorphosis took place and condemnation was canceled, the sting of sin was healed, and death was swallowed up in victory. Now, everyone who believes in the Son’s death and resurrection receives his victory on their behalf. The believer’s life is instantly justified—and transformed from bondage to freedom, darkness to light, sin to righteousness, and death to life. When we trust in Christ, God the Father binds us to his Son in his death so that we might be united with him in his resurrection. The resurrected life is about how we walk in the light of our future resurrection now. So, what does it look like to live on the other side of the cross?

The resurrected life calls us in faith on an upward trajectory to become more like Christ. Our citizenship is now in heaven with the risen Lord Jesus. And it is toward heaven that our life’s orientation must turn: “We await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:20–21).

Sadly, some Christians never seem to make any progress in this journey of transformation. What stalls their journey? Easter is an invitation to check the map of your journey with Christ.

First, ask yourself a difficult question. Are you on the right road in the first place? Some churchgoers don’t seem to make any traction in their Christian life because they haven’t surrendered their lives to Christ. There is nothing—nothing at all—you can do to earn God’s favor. No past church attendance, no certificate of Sunday School graduation, no membership in a Bible study guarantees your salvation. Only one thing you must do: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

Second, some Christians want to create their own path to transformation. Studying the Bible or spending time in prayer seems too boring or predictable—so they take a different trail and get lost in the weeds of worldly wisdom or new age spiritual beliefs. But Jesus is the “way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). We cannot grow apart from him (John 15:5).

Jesus promised, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Abundant life is the joy of a life transformed by Christ. As believers sojourning together, we can seek the resurrected life now as well as in the age to come. While some things about our future in Christ remain a mystery, we can have partial knowledge and personal experience of a new and abundant life now: that is the goal of the resurrected life. Like Paul, we must acknowledge that we have not “already obtained this,” nor are we “already perfect” (Philippians 3:12). We are all works in progress.

To help you in this journey of transformation, Bible Study Media has The Resurrected Life: Making All Things New available to you today. This devotional and small group Bible study will take you into this new reality that was unsealed and opened to us by the empty tomb: new life, new temple, new body, new covenant, new creation, new day.

Let us press on and encouraged one another in this resurrected life today!

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