How to Find Life in the Moment

You can’t allow the fact you’re not going to live forever move you beyond living in the moment.

At one time or another, we all get caught longing for the great Christian someday. Looking for the day when we can once and for all live above our circumstances. To find a quick fix that will quickly fix our lives.

Eternal life is a onetime fix. Either you make a decision for Christ or you don’t. Once you do, you never have to go back and repeat the process. Once a child of the King, always a child of the King.

Salvation, however, is not a one-time fix, but rather one you repeat over-and-over again.

Salvation isn’t the same as eternal life. We’ve become accustom to interchanging these two words, using each to refer to our “born again” moment. But within the many instances in the bible that make reference to salvation, the meaning falls more in line with saving us “in the moment” and not eternally. Like King David did many times, asking God for salvation is a cry for help for Him to rescue you in the midst of a trying circumstance.

Because as believers we will one day live in heaven eternally, we get caught in the trap of thinking the moment does the same—lives like heaven. But it doesn’t. The need for salvation in the moment—a rescuing by God—is His way of bringing eternity into the moment.

Since time doesn’t function like eternity, heaven isn’t ruled by the laws of time. Likewise, the here-and-now doesn’t function by the eternal. This moment, then, more reflects a here-and-now way of living.

God knew that we needed Life in the moment. Jesus is beyond just being the source of life, as He is Life itself. Yet, in God’s plan for you living on Earth, the Life that has no beginning and end—Jesus—flows through you and meets life head on in real time. There’s no storing up His power. You use it in the moment or lose it.

Being born again puts you into Life, but likewise, Life gets put into you. Think of heaven and the here-and-now as having two residencies, one to live in now, one to live in later. Yet, wherever you live, it’s the same Life that keeps you existing.

The Life that awaits you in heaven is perfectly capable of being your Life in the present moment. It’s just that the present moment is always followed by another moment, and then another and the decision you make to abide in Christ right now won’t help you in the moment that awaits just beyond.

Jesus said as much when He likened Himself to the true manna that falls from heaven. You remember the manna story, don’t you? Due to their stubbornness, the children of Israel wondered around in the desert for forty years, and as they did, each morning picked up a fresh supply of food (manna) from on top of the ground. Each person could pick up just enough manna for one day. Anymore, and it turned to worms.

As the true manna—the sustaining source of life—Jesus cannot be gathered up beyond the moment. Yes, you can invite Him into your life and know that you’ll one day live in heaven, but you must moment-by-moment open yourself up to Him to experience His Life in the here-and-now. Yesterday’s Jesus won’t work today.

The frustration for many comes from the inability to experience a sustainable change in life. Why can’t a one-time-decision to abide in Christ be good enough for all time? Why must you make the decision to abide in each moment or each day?

Life is something we live as it unfolds. Once life opens up into today, yesterday closes, while the future remains safely tucked away. As much as we fret over yesterday and worry about tomorrow, we’re always stuck in the right now.

To experience a “right now” form of Christianity requires a heavy dose of Jesus in the moment. This is why you and I were given the gift of abiding. Abiding allows the Life in heaven to become the Life of right now. To live any other way simply falls into the trap of looking for a great Christian someday that never seems to arrive.

Helping you discover this reality of a moment-by-moment, abiding relationship with Christ is the very reason Beliefchangers exists.

If you haven’t heard, we’re about to complete work on a new online place whereby Christians can gather together and grow in their abiding relationships with Christ, while at the same time sharing their experiences with others. This new “place” brings the best of both websites and social mediums—rich content and the ability to communicate with others—together in one spot. We want to help your Life in Christ grow while giving you the opportunity to express the workings of Christ in your Life.

By the end of the year, we plan to ask for volunteers to help us test this new, free site before going public with it. In a few weeks, we’ll be sending out online invitations, and I hope you’ll become an early adopter.

But the new site only serves a greater purpose: to spread the message of abiding in Christ. And the best “spreaders” of the message are the ones who experience the reality of living it. And living the abiding life can only happen in the moment as you open up your life to Christ’s.

But that’s a good thing since all of life lives in the moment too! God has us right where He wants us. Locked up in the moment as we are, victory can come only through abiding in Jesus.

Over the last several months, I’ve noticed an increasing appetite for Christ in those who frequent the Beliefchangers website and Facebook page. God seems to be bringing together a group of people who want nothing but Jesus. I believe this new online place we’re building will become home for those wanting to access the deeper life of abiding in Christ.

Jesus is the single answer to your life’s moment.

Do you mind sharing in the comment section below how your desire for Christ is leading you into a deeper desire for Him in the moment? It’s your chance to begin sharing with others your desire for abiding.