“You have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead.” Oh how true this can be for so many individuals and so many churches. These words cut us to the quick as we begin to really absorb what Jesus is saying to us. He speaks about “looking” alive and “acting” alive and doing all the right things to seem alive – but we are dead. We are dead because we are spiritually dead – not that we are not “spiritual” but that we are spiritually dead; and we are spiritually dead because the Holy Spirit does not live within us. We all have a calling. We all have a purpose. We all have, as scripture refers to it, a first love; and that is Jesus, the Christ of God who lived, died, and was resurrected – and in so doing placed all who will belive in right standing with the Most High God and defeated the power of sin and death in our lives. Do you believe this?