CHRIST, THE CENTER AND CONTINUANCE OF ALL TRUE LIFE
If Christ were removed from a man, what would remain? He might still breathe, still reason, still labor beneath the sun—but life, in its truest sense, would have departed. For life is not measured merely by motion, nor by sensation, nor even by consciousness. The Bible speaks with greater clarity and far deeper authority: life is bound to Christ Himself. Sever the branch from the vine, and though it may remain green for a moment, it is already dying.
The Bible does not hesitate to locate life in one place and one place only. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). Life is not something Christ distributes at arm’s length, as though it were a commodity to be received and then managed independently.
He is life.
To possess Him is to live; to be without Him is to exist under the sentence of death, however energetic or impressive that existence may appear.
Our Lord’s own words admit of no dilution: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He does not say He points to life, or teaches about life, or improves life. He claims identity with it.
All vitality—natural and spiritual—finds its origin, its order, and its endurance in Him. “For in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Every heartbeat borrowed from creation is sustained by the Creator who took flesh and dwelt among us.
Men search for life everywhere else. Some chase it through pleasure, others through purpose, others through distraction finely dressed as meaning. But these are broken cisterns, promising refreshment and yielding dust.
Christ alone sustains what He gives. “He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17). Outside of Him, nothing holds together—not the soul, not the mind, not the future.
The Gospel does not flatter our condition. It declares us dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1). And this diagnosis matters, because the remedy must match the disease. The dead do not need instruction; they need resurrection.
This is precisely what God has accomplished in Christ. “Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, He made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5). Christianity is not moral improvement with religious language; it is new life created by sovereign grace.
This life flows from the cross and stands secure in the empty tomb. Christ did not merely die to forgive; He rose to reign—and to give life that death can never reclaim. “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore” (Revelation 1:18). The believer’s confidence does not rest in endurance, but in union. “Because I live, you will live also” (John 14:19).
Nor is this life deferred until heaven. Eternal life begins the moment Christ is received. It is not merely endless duration, but present communion. “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). To know Him is to live already in the light of eternity, even while walking through shadows.
Thus the Christian can say without exaggeration or fear: Christ is my life.
When strength wanes, He remains unexhausted. When joy flickers, He is unchanged. When death draws near, He is already there, holding the keys. “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
Lose everything else—and if Christ is yours, life itself has not been touched.
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Lord Jesus Christ, You are my life and my hope. Keep me from seeking vitality apart from You. Let Your risen life be formed in me, until faith gives way to sight and I live fully in Your presence forever. Amen.
BDD
