Putting off This Body and Putting on The Uncorruptable

     It was said that unless a kernel of wheat fall to the ground and die that it cannot live again.  So is the body of man.  Paul understood this and wrote about it to the early churches.  Questions arose about the type of body we would have in the resurrection.  It was to be a glorified body like the one Jesus of Nazareth had after the resurrection.  In our life as Christians we get used to putting off of the old man so to speak and putting on the new provided by the working of the Holy Spirit.  We have an obligation to fulfill all the words of Christ in the bodily form.  We no longer conform to the worldly callings to our flesh and try diligently to live up to Christ's words.  We have many maladies and sins that we also struggle with day to day that the average person does not even give credence too.  In this working out of our salvation we do not do the works in the flesh so to speak and thereby earn our right into the kingdom of God but rather do the works of God to honor him.  This means not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and the things we would ordinarily do but abstain from them to honor God instead.  This is not a works project but merely doing what God intended for us to do.  We have within us the ability Christ had to refrain from sin and thereby not be a slave to it any longer,  This is "powerful voodoo" and it necessary because he said "Be holy because I am Holy."  What does this exactly mean?  And how do we do it?
    Well for one thing we must not walk around arrogantly because we feel better than the average bear (Yogi) and must do this with an amount of humility knowing that Christ gave his life so we could do so.  What the Apostles experienced on the day of Pentecost in receiving the Holy Spirit we also can experience today.  No different and with the same results of empowerment. This what it means to walk out our salvation with fear and trembling.  Before God we know what we are and what we were before our salvation and our joining with God.
    Christianity has taken a bad rap from those who misrepresent it and have not lived up to the words of Christ.  For one to be a follower is to sift carefully through the word of God and to study it just as diligently as the Pharisees studied the law in their day.  There is no other way other than this to understand what is needed.  Christ spent three years of his life traversing the countryside and giving of himself so we could understand the ways of God.  Mercy and truth triumph over law many times over. Legalism serves to bind and kill.
     What we are faced with in the secular world to today is a set of governing rules that are at times immoveable and restrict a certain freedom Christ set in place for us.  The Church is a way to follow a higher governing rule one that is just and one that understands  error within and provides forgiveness when transgression occurs.   This is not to say that all denominations do so.
  With the story of Mary Magdalene we see the ultimate tenderness of Christ in forgiveness and then receiving  a commandment to sin no further.  She was not stoned by those in attendance but let go and was free to live a life in  obedience to mercy shown.   I'm sure that she did so when she looked upon the face of Jesus.
     We then as Christians look forward to living again in a world that will be re-created by Christ.  We do not therefore resist all of the necessary involvements of this world but look to transform it as Christ would have if he continued in bodily form.  We are his legs, arms, and mouth in this world and speak for him.  This is a burden carried out with joy.