20 August 2011

Biblical Zombies

Today's burning question(s):

"Are zombies real? Are they in the Bible? Help!"

Gather round, children, and Daddy Miles will tell you a zombie story with a happy ending, so you can all sleep like babies tonight. Happy, uneaten babies, unafraid of stupid zombies.

Of course zombies are real. The living dead? You bet. St. Paul talked about them in Rom 7, asking who would free him from "this body of death". If that's not a clear zombie reference, then you need more Ed Wood movies in your life.

So, if the old you is your own personal zombie, lumbering around trying to eat your moral brain, causing you to sin and become your old zombie self's other evil twin, what can you do about it?

Most of us us are taught to flee from it (dooming us to the life of a fugitive, grasping a a bite or two of food as we run frantically through the church on Sunday, never really making much difference except than as laughing stock for those who have no use for God or his people) or to resist. But resistance is for the enemy (the doo doo head, see previous blog on Satan). Zombie aren't even alive. Why do we fear them? What are their weapons?

A zombie mainly has two weapons-- fear and lies (the same as doo doo head). In both cases, their opposite is the only weapon you need, the equivalent of a head shot with a twelve guage, depleted uranium slug.

Truth destroys lies.

Love conquers fear.

As I noted in the "Satan is a weenie" blog, Love and Truth of these are part of the very essence of God. We are made in God's image, and if we accept Christ, we accept that image. We are remade into it. Further, we have his Holy Spirit. If we have the living God in us, who else need we fear?

Certainly not ourselves. Especially our old, dead selves. Let that body rot. Fill in the grave, put up a cross as a tombstone, and walk away.

Jesus came to set us free. Not to make us feel bad about ourselves. Not to make us hate ourselves, fear ourselves, or any of that garbage.

Go read John 17, or at least the last part. Wait, I'll read that part to you. Close your eyes and listen...

"My prayer is not for [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and you in me so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

(Jn 17/20-26, NIV, emphasis mine)

I had always focused on the results parts of this passage, unity and others getting saved. But all the results are predicated on something key that we typically miss, having been prejudiced by our (mis?)understanding of Paul's writings. We know the Holy Spirit is in us. But according to this prayer-- the last thing Jesus is recorded as praying before his betrayal and arrest-- we also find that:

+ we are one not only with each other, but we are one with Daddy God and Jesus;
+ Daddy God loves us the same as He loves Jesus;
+ we have the glory of the Father and Jesus in us;
+ his love, and indeed Jesus, lives in us!

We've been taught to fear the old man or woman, the one that died when we received Christ. But the reality is, the dead fear God and his family. So just be you, the you that God made, and let the zombies run away screaming like little girl zombies, whatever that sounds like.

2 comments:

  1. Miles I LOVE YOU brother!!!! What you wrote is more conformation and encouragement to BE MYSELF!!!

    I've been having a hard time with feeling like a failure, but I've killed it and buried it. And I'm going to keep it that way!! Thank you Jesus~!

    Keep on writing~~!! It's so powerful!

    Much love.
    -youme

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  2. W00T! Go, Youme! So proud of you, sis. And you're welcome!

    ReplyDelete