Just as I am today, try to read these few words with new eyes and ears, even if it's scripture you've read a hundred or not even a time before..."What should we say? Should we keep on sinning, so that God's wonderful kindness will show up even better? No, we should not! If we are dead to sin, how can we go on sinning? Don't you know that all who share in Christ Jesus by being baptized also share in His death? When we were baptized, we died and were buried with Christ. We were baptized, so that we would live a new life, as Christ was raised to life by the glory of God the Father. If we shared in Jesus' death by being baptized, we will be raised to life with Him. We know that the persons we used to be were nailed to the cross with Jesus. This was done, so that our sinful bodies would no longer be the slaves of sin. We know that sin doesn't have power over dead people. As surely as we died with Christ, we believe we will also live with Him. We know that death no longer has any power over Christ. He died and was raised to life, never again to die. When Christ died, He died for sin once and for all. But now He is alive, and He lives only for God. In the same way, you must think of yourselves as dead to the power of sin. But Christ Jesus has given life to you, and you live for God. Don't let sin rule your body. After all, your body is bound to die, so don't obey its desires or let any part of it become a slave of evil. Give yourselves to God, as people who have been raised from death to life. Make every part of your body a slave that pleases God. Don't let sin keep ruling your lives.
You are ruled by God's kindness and not by the Law."
-Romans 6:1-14
It's not something I am even close to getting, but as I rose today, I've been pondering this identification with Christ in His death and burial, as today was truly "tomb day." I pray it's something you let your heart mull over today and ask God to reveal to you just what this death to the flesh, to sin, to the world means in your life too. The whole chapter of Romans 6 gives us a radical picture of what it looks like to be dead to sin, but alive to Christ. Can't you just hear Paul's plea to the Romans above, to just KNOW that they can identify with Jesus in His death, burial and resurrection power, to no longer be enslaved to the junk that just kills them, for eternity really, if they're not believers? And for us believers that still battle against the power of sin to drag our redeemed bodies down, it's just something we have acknowledge and walk in, the work was already "finished" on the cross, we now CAN walk in grace!
So, my question for me today...what areas in my life, that I keep falling prey to, do I need to reckon and acknowledge the death and victory that's already been won for me?!
1 comment:
It's good to remember what His death meant but also to make it an everyday part of life. You can hold yourself more responsible that way.
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