Daily Devotional for Small Group Discussion: Living the Risen Life

Discussion Questions:

  1. How do you experience the reality of the risen life in Christ?
  2. Does your congregation ever have a renewal of baptism in worship? What other practices of Christian formation remind you of risen life in Christ?
  3. The Colossians passage follows a discussion of Christian freedom from certain religious practices and proscriptions (dietary rules, for example). Are there practices today that we might be freed from by understanding the radical freedom of the risen life?

Living the Risen Life

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. – Colossians 3:1 (NRSV)

On Easter Day we all sang “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” as we joyfully celebrated the astonishing claim that God raised Jesus from the dead.

Resurrection is not a once-a-year happy moment, but a living reality in the lives of Christians. I am always deeply moved at baptisms by the church’s bold assertion that “we die with Christ in a death like his, and are raised to life with him to live a new kind of life.”

“A new kind of life” sounds pretty good to me since the old kind of life I have lived often has left a lot to be desired. Those “new kind of life” promises—resurrection promises—remind me that Christ keeps working in me and through me and with me. And not just me as a lone individual, but me as a member of his church, his body, his fellowship.

When Christians say, “if Jesus were alive today…” I know that they merely mean “if Jesus was still walking around and talking as he once did in ancient Galilee.” But the truth of his risen and continuing life with us is even more astonishing than his earthly life.

The risen life means that in life, in death, and in life beyond death, we are not alone. In life, in death, and in life beyond death, Jesus is with us. Because Jesus is alive today!

Prayer

Living Christ, may we grow more and more each day into the risen life we share with you.