Spring time resurrection

Spring time is in the air and to be honest with you all, its not my favorite time of the year. Up north spring means plenty of brown, mud and impassible roads at times. Not to mention the work that has been put off because of the winter weather, or the cleanup that comes because of the winter weather, but I digress. It has gotten me thinking about several things though in relation to spring. When most people think of spring, they think of new life, warmer weather and a reason to wear the shorts and shirts. This idea of new life comes in many forms. Whether it is the baby animals being born, the leaves on trees, or even a moment of personal growth/self improvement can and is often started in spring. Spring gives hope, because there is something better to come,. whether it is warmer weather and longer days, or the chance at new life and new relationships. With the chance of longer days and new life, it has gotten me thinking, about two things that are kind of related......maybe and those are resurrection and discipline.
Resurrection means in my book not only something being brought to life, but not having to die again. Essentially, death has been conqured and we do not or will not have to die again. As a Christian, we do have that hope of final resurrection and hope that we will be in heaven when we die or when Christ returns. But there might be another form of resurrection that we can have here on earth. How many of us struggle with things here on earth. Whether it is food, what we watch, how we spend our money, we all struggle with something. That is why most of us make New Years Resolutions, so we can maybe conquer those things and so we can over come those things and be better people. I really think that we want to be resurrected from those things that hinder us is so that we do not have to deal with them again and we be raised up and have new life.
Here is the scary thing about this sort of thing, in order to obtain new life, something has to die. If it doesn't die, we are just making behavior modifications. These modifications may last for awhile, but eventually, they will come back to bite us in the backside. It may not be today, tomorrow or five years from now, but it will come back and bite us. If we are the sole provider of the death and resurrection, were in trouble because we are a pretty messed up people. Trying to get someone who is broken to fix themselves is like asking mud to turn itself into gold. It just doesn't or wont happen. We need someone or something to come and not only fix us, but provide that resurrection. Jesus death and resurrection provides that way for us. Jesus death provided the ultimate sacrifice for us and was more than sufficiant sacrifice for our sin and His resurrection provided victory over death. If we call ourselves Christians, Christ followers or any other name for Christians, we need to participate in Christ death also. Even though Christ sacrifice was and is sufficient, being a Christian means we put on the character of Christ. We are still created in God's image, but are scared with sin and its tendencies. So to replace those tendencies and our bad character, we need to die, so that Christ may live in and through us.
This takes work, but we are not at it alone. It takes both kinds of discipline. The first kind of discipline is the fortitude and actions to go through and do something to get it done. The second kind of discipline is a matter of correction. I am like anybody else, I hate correction and discipline. I don't view it as a chance to get better, but as I have done something wrong and shame. I don't like to think that I do things wrong, and I hope to do everything right the first time, but the likelyhood of this is not that good. With God's discipline, He is looking for more than just for action or attitude change. He is not only looking for us to stop gossiping about other people, but for our character to change and not only to stop it, but not have the desire to gossip and change it when it comes our way. If it was just about action change, it not only cheapens God's grace, but it diminishes who God is. My hope is that we can embrace discipline, so that we can not cheapen God and to be made into His image.
So here is a closing illustration. In the fall, a tree loses most of its leaves quite easily. They just fall off and then they are done. There are a few leaves who hold on tight and it takes a strong wind to knock them off. Then their are the one or two leaves that hang on no matter what. The only reason they fall off is because the new leaves are coming forth. This is the way for our lives to. Some habits are easy to kick, for other habits, it takes plenty of prayer or event to go away. That third leave represents those hangups that just don't go away no matter how hard we try. Until there is new life and God's grace, it isn't going away. So in this time of spring and while we are still in the Lenten Season, lets die to ourselves and cloth ourselves in the righteousness of God and grow more dependent on Him every day