Alive to God

 

“For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.”

—Romans 6:6-7

The most dramatic occurrence in the entire Bible takes place three days after Jesus, the Son of God, was crucified on a cruel Roman cross of torture. On the first day of the week, Jesus rose from the dead. In so doing He conquered sin, death, and Satan. He was the one and only person who died and was raised from the dead to never die again.

In our lives as followers of Jesus, we begin our quest in this earthly life with the sin stain of Adam infecting us with godlessness. As we grow and mature, we begin to sin on our own. Ask the parents of a newborn when that child begins to show signs of disobedience. In the first disobedient act, that child becomes a willful sinner. The sin nature we inherited is so ingrained in us that we simply cannot help but sin.

When God sends the Holy Spirit to reveal to us that He loves us, that He has made provision to forgive our sins through the shedding of the life blood of His one and only Son, and when He enables us to understand that before the foundation of the earth He chose us to belong to Himself, our new life begins. We move from being dead in our trespasses and sin to becoming more and more alive in God through Christ.

The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans 6:6-7:

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Once we surrender our sinful wills to God’s perfect will for us, we join in the crucifixion of our Lord. As Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20:

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.

As we begin another new day, let’s acknowledge with great joy that we, too, have been crucified with Christ. And, because of this, we have been set free from the power of sin. We truly can experience the reality of Romans 6:6-7 in our lives this day: dead to sin, but alive to God.

 

_{Copyright © 2019 by Dean K. Wilson. All Rights Reserved.}

_{More info at www.DeanKWilson.com}