the present.

"I do not know much about this man, but I do know that his whole life conveys this one message: 'anyone at any moment can start a new future.'"
-Robert Garaudy, communist philosopher

so many of us get lost in the idea that Jesus is the past and Jesus is the future. we forget that Jesus is the present more than anything. the risen Christ is now, today... yesterday... forever. He is available for any person at any moment. just like God breathed life into Adam, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into us. "And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." [John 20:22-23]

this Spirit is the living Christ that we tend to miss. Brennan Manning writes in his book Abba's Child that "pessimism and defeatism are never the fruit of the life-giving Spirit but rather reveal our unawareness of present risenness."

this present Spirit means we can cope with anything, we are not on our own. "I pray that you realize... how vast are the resources of his Spirit available to us." [Eph. 1:18-19]

this present Spirit is freedom. "Now this Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." [2 Corinthians 3:17]

this present risenness is the resurrection. "Know that I am with you always, yes, to the end of time." [Matthew 28:20]


following Jesus is an act of faith in Jesus as the present here and now.

"Christianity is not simply a message but an experience of faith that becomes a message, explicitly offering hope, freedom from bondage, and new realm of possibility."
-Brennan Manning