What SpaceX Can Teach Us about Staying Connected to Christ

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is delaying its Polaris Dawn launch, scheduled for today, until tomorrow morning due to a helium leak. The mission will send four people into orbit for five days. On day three, two of them will perform the first spacewalk ever conducted on a commercial mission. In related news, NASA announced Saturday that it will use SpaceX’s Dragon capsule to bring two astronauts home from the International Space Station. They have been stuck there since June because the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that carried them to the station has been plagued by thruster problems and helium leaks.

However, the next Dragon return flight is not scheduled until February. As a result, their stay, originally intended to last eight days, will extend to about eight months. The Starliner capsule will return to Earth, likely in September, without anyone on board.

The Starliner project cost more than $5 billion. When the empty capsule travels back to Earth, I doubt many people outside of Boeing and NASA will be watching. If astronauts were on board the troubled craft, millions of us would travel vicariously with them.

In other words, the Starliner capsule’s true value is based not on what it is but on whom it contains.

Let’s learn today to see ourselves in the same way.

Elon Musk Believes in “The Principles of Christianity”

Sociologist Philip Rieff observed: “No culture has ever preserved itself where it is not a registration of sacred order.” He then made an important statement our secularized society needs to hear: “The notion of a culture that persists independent of all sacred orders is unprecedented in human history.”

However, for a culture to flourish, it needs the right “sacred order.” The Taliban recently codified morality laws requiring Afghan women to cover their faces and men to grow beards. I doubt this will help with the escalating humanitarian crisis raging in that country, with poverty afflicting more than 90 percent of the population.

We see a similar story in the Old Testament, where we read that “the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lᴏʀᴅ” (1 Samuel 2:12). And so these sons of the high priest, while externally religious, committed grave sins leading to their demise (1 Samuel 4:17).

Elon Musk recently made headlines with his statement, “I believe in the principles of Christianity like love thy neighbor as thyself (have empathy for all) and turn the other cheek (end the cycle of retribution).” However, even the “principles of Christianity” were not intended to effect the change we need.

Jesus testified: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5, my emphasis). We need the indwelling power of Christ to obey the teachings of Christ and so accomplish the purpose of Christ in our lives and our world.

“Not Good Doing, But God-Likeness”

Tragically, many prefer self-sufficiency over Spirit-dependence. Even religion can become transactional as we pray and act so that God will bless us in return. But this is far from the abundant life Jesus came to give (John 10:10).

C. S. Lewis lamented, “Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” According to Lewis, here is why this doesn’t work:

“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

Conversely, “God makes people right with himself through their faith in Jesus Christ. This is true for all who believe in Christ” (Romans 3:22 NCV). Consider the difference an encounter with the living Lord Jesus can make:

Peter was transformed from cowardice before a servant to courage before the Sanhedrin.
Saul of Tarsus was changed from a persecutor of Christians to our greatest theologian, missionary, and evangelist.
John, on the prison island of Patmos, was given the Revelation.

So it can be for any of us. Oswald Chambers noted:

The expression of Christian character is not good doing, but God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly.

“In Christ, I Am Already Victorious”

How can we experience such transformation today?

Settle for nothing less than an intimate, daily communion with the living Christ. This is his intention for every one of us (Philippians 3:10).
Position yourself to experience his presence by submitting to His Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), speaking with him in prayer, and listening to his voice through his word and Spirit.
Expect the Enemy to attack your relationship with Jesus through temptation, distraction, and discouragement. Turn each attack over to your Lord, thus using Satan’s tactics to advance God’s purpose and power in your life (cf. 2 Corinthians 2:11).
Live as if you were in close proximity to Jesus because you are (Matthew 28:20).

Watchman Nee wrote:

Outside of Christ, I am only a sinner, but in Christ, I am saved. Outside of Christ, I am empty; in Christ, I am full. Outside of Christ, I am weak; in Christ, I am strong. Outside of Christ, I cannot; in Christ, I am more than able. Outside of Christ, I have been defeated; in Christ, I am already victorious. How meaningful are the words, “in Christ.”

Are you “in Christ” today?

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.