A few weeks ago we were all sitting around in the living room and my then fourteen month old decided to babble some incoherent baby talk. And all of a sudden our six-year old exclaimed, “She talked. In person like us. She talked in person.” He was so excited by his revelation. You have to love the way a six-year old mind works. It was almost as if all of a sudden his baby sister was a real person with real potential for communicating and his world was blown wide open.

I tell you this because lately I have been burdened by this same thought with the life of Christ being lived out of His people. I am not sure we allow Jesus to talk in person through us. For that matter I am not sure we allow Jesus in person to live through us. Think about it for a moment. When God was incarnate in the flesh people couldn’t get close enough to Him. He would have blind people shouting at him, scholars engaging him in debate, sickly-women just trying to touch his clothes and even tax professionals hanging out in trees just to catch a glimpse of him. Jesus was captivating.

And yet for some reason we in the church who claim to be the body of Christ are content to be mundane. We who are Christ in the flesh through the power of the Holy Spirit are content to be less than. In Galatians 2:20 we read, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” And what’s more is the context surrounding this verse. Paul is speaking about a life lived out of grace versus a life lived out of the law. Jesus was all about grace when he walked this earth. Granted he was a master student/teacher of the law, but he never used it to keep people at arm’s length but rather he spoke of it in such a way that it did not confound people but rather drew them into right relationship with God and man. So if we are crucified with Christ do people see a life of grace lived out of us or rather someone who fumbles awkwardly with the “law” and consequently is even awkward to be around.

I have to think that a life where Christ is incarnate and breathes and speaks out of us is a life lived to the fullest. I have to believe that if someone is dripping with Jesus that people absolutely love to be around them and can’t get enough of them. And I have to believe that the person who lives this out truly believes that Jesus is Risen and is Alive even in this moment. Not only is Christ living, but he makes himself incarnate with us every day in our conversations, our interactions and our relationships with His creations…His children…our fellow men and women.

May we be so bold as to believe that Christ is living in us. May we be so enamored with living him out of us that people fall in love with the Jesus that they see in us. Then maybe all of a sudden their remark about Christ might become, “He talked…in person…like me.”