Is it possible to be alive and dead at the same time? In 1 Timothy 5:6, the apostle speaks of a person who “is dead even while he or she lives.” I think I have encountered some people like this in the years of pastoring God’s people. I asked one gentleman, “How is your week?” to which he replied, “I am dead Monday through Friday and don’t begin to live until the week-end.” Once I was invited to preach at a large church in Memphis, Tennessee, and the pastor requested that I expound the subject, “Where are the dead?” and remarked, “Bill, I can tell you where 500 dead persons are – they will be in Sunday morning services in my church.” Jesus describes a whole church as “being dead” when they thought they were alive. (Rev. 3;1). Do you attend that church?
The question is: When is a person Alive? He is alive when he is alive in his total being, and there are 5 dimensions of life: Physical, Mental, Emotional, Social, and Spiritual.
- You Must Be Physically Re-Charged. The body runs down every 24 hours, and it must be recharged to function properly. Taking care of our bodies is more than a good idea. It is the first step toward any kind of success.[1] Most men take better care of their cars than their bodies. Here are a few tips for keeping our body alive:
- Eat like a king at breakfast, like a prince for lunch, like a pauper at night.
- Embrace a regimen of physical exercise three to five times weekly.
- Take the proper kind of daily vitamins.
- Inform yourself about your cholesterol and keep it at proper level.
- Get the adequate amount of sleep.
- You Must Be Mentally Renewed. The world’s wisest man wrote, “As a person thinks, so is he.” (Prov. 23:7) Our thought lives are the soil from which spring our actions sprout, grow, and bear fruit – for better, or for worse. Even when our behavior seems right, we are unrighteous if the thoughts in our minds are evil. Cleaning up our thought lives is not easy, in fact it’s impossible by our human resolve. Thus the command of God is that we do not let the “world around us squeeze us into its mold but be ye transformed (renewed) by the renewing of our mind.” (Romans 12:2).
What, then, does it take to “renew” the mind? The mind must begin to think the thoughts of God by internalizing the Word of God, which requires that we not only read and study the Word diligently, but also memorize and meditate on the Word until we understand what it is saying to us and do what it commands, after which we will show the Word by the way we live, followed by sowing (witnessing) the Word in our world. The greatest commandment is to love God with our hearts, emotions, mind and strength. Many evangelicals stress the heart but ignore the mind, but while Jesus took our sins away when He died for us, He did not take our minds. It is in the mind that the glorious work of sanctification takes place. So let us renew it constantly by “Internalizing” it constantly. “With the right attitude, we can accomplish more than we ever dreamed. With the wrong attitude, we will ignore more opportunities than most people ever get. Are you being the best you can be? Check yourself against this list of being the best you can be, and see how you measure up. Then work on your weak spots:
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- Don’t put limitations on yourself. What would you do if you knew you could not fail? You cannot control the outside- only what is inside your life.
- Make only choices that are good for you. You are the result of the choices you make. Don’t make excuses for bad choices – take responsibility, admit your shortcomings, and move on toward your goal.
- Don’t worry about what others think about you. No one can live your life for you. Do what is best and right for you regardless of what others might think.
- Determine to have a healthy body. Treat your body as if it is the only one you are going to get. Use positive self-talk to program staying well. Practice wellness.
- Take control of your life and responsibility for your feelings. Stop blaming others for the things that are wrong in your life. Take charge!
- Live every day to its fullest. How much more would you do if you approached every day as if it might be your last?”[2]
You Must Be Emotionally Restrained. Emotions are wonderful if restrained by God’s Word, Love and Power; if not we may be strong physically and mentally, but at the same time sabotage ourselves emotionally. Zig Ziglar wrote, “Attitude, not aptitude, determines our altitude.” We all have wounds of some kind. The deepest is probably the feeling that nobody likes or loves me. This may not be true, but perception becomes the reality, and as wounds eat away at our souls on the inside, we sometimes compound the problem by becoming involved in additions which disable or destroy us.
Thus the healing of emotional wounds is a priority all of us should have. We have to admit our wounds, identify them, and work toward their eventual healing. What is the healer? Let God answer, “He sent forth His word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions (pits)” (Psalm 107:20).
Ex.: While pastoring a large congregation in Houston, a godly and faithful man come to me saying, “I am sick,” and when I asked him his problem, he replied, “I don’t really know, but I know I am sick at heart.” He began to consult a psychiatrist and a few months later returned to share the good news with me, “Praise the Lord, I am completely healed,” and I responded, “”How did this happen; did the psychiatrist help you?” He said, “No, I kept coming to your Sunday School class where I heard, understood and applied the Word, and I was gloriously healed.”
There is no healer like sound doctrine or teaching. A Sunday School teacher asked her young pupils, “What is doctrine?” and a little guy said, “Doctrine is what you need when you get sick.” “Out of the mouth of babes comes wisdom.” (Matthew 11:25), according to Jesus. In our Bibles we find the word “sound doctrines” (1 Tim. 1:10; 2 Tim. 4:3; Titus 2:1) and the adjective sound means “healthy” doctrine.
You Must Be Socially Related. Every person truly alive has friends, and not just Jesus but human friends. Making friends is not easy, and many have been burned in friendships which seemed safe and turned out to be disastrous, even in the mate we chose. So herewith are some guide lines for making true friends:
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- “Safe people aren’t afraid of intimacy.
- Save people put a high price on honesty.
- Safe people are focused on reality, not fantasy.
- Safe people aren’t needy and dependent.
- Safe people say, “I’m sorry.”
- Safe people aren’t put off by other’s faults.
- Safe people are involved in their own personal growth.
- Safe people are reliable and responsible.
- Safe people know how both to give and to take constructive criticism, but they aren’t critical.
- Safe people mirror to you your real self.
- Safe people give as comfortably as they take.
- Safe people remind you of your value and affirm you – without a hidden agenda.”[3]
Last But Not Least, You Must Be Spiritually Resurrected. In reality we arrive in this world with a sin nature (Psalm 51:5) which we obey and become “dead (spiritually) in trespasses and sin.” (Ephes. 2:1-2). The cure for this deadness is not reformation, education, human determination, generation but spiritual resurrection – a resurrection so radical that it results in the “new birth.” (John 3:1-18). Through the entrance into our being of the living Christ in the Person of the Holy Spirit to all those who will truly admit they are dead, lost in sin, destined to hell but who repent (turn from sins), and surrender to Jesus as Lord and Savior. Dr. Greg Viehman in his provocative book, The God Diagnosis, writes, “I had to discover I was dead to become alive.” The results: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17).
If you haven’t addressed the need for spiritual resurrection from your personal death, you are living in a spiritual void which keep you alive physically but dead spiritually. Result: Just existing when you could be living abundantly and continually.
“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:14; 11)
[1] Stephen Arterburn, Winning at Work Without Losing at Love, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994, p. 220
[2] Ibid. pp. 223-224
[3] Ibid. p. 225.