Do we live in the fear of failing to adhere to the old written law, or have we grasped hold of the new message of Christ, that is... we are to live in the hope and love of God by serving Him in the way of the Spirit? Woe are we who depend on our own abilities by attempting to follow the letters of the law rather than by partaking of God’s grace through Jesus Christ who has fulfilled the law, and through whom we are now the children of God.
Have we truly died with Jesus Christ? Have we died to sin, and found a new and renewed life with Him, or are we still hanging on our cross, and struggling to hold onto the life we were meant to lay down? Frequently believers who have confessed their sins, and been baptized into death with Christ, find themselves holding onto the remnants of their old life, and who they once were. It is hard to face suffering, death, and to let go of that last breath so that we can die to this world and be resurrected with Jesus into the next. So every Christian needs to honestly ask himself... am I truly dead with Christ, resurrected into a new life, or am I continuing to hold tight to a certain season, or vestige, of my old life?
Believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and is our Savior and Redeemer who has made restitution for our sin, and cleanses us of them while conquering death through the power of His life, brings the greatest blessing ever pronounced upon us. Once we, who now believe in Christ, were lawless creatures; not merely disobedient of man’s laws, which could be forgiven by repaying our debt to men, but of God’s law of which we ourselves were unable to make restitution by works, or our own ability.
When someone attempts to take something from us how do we react? If a thief holds us at gunpoint and says “Give me your money!” What is our response? Do we hand him our wallet because, after all, it is worth far less than our life, and because we can always make more money? In doing this are we acting out of a fear of death, or do we trust in God that He will see us through this moment of need? In scripture David sings of being delivered from traps, suffering, and certain death, but I love one verse in particular because it leads me to Jesus...
We say that in Christ we have died to our sin, and yet we are still tempted, and prone to experience it. How can this be? How can we be in Christ, and yet still find ourselves contemplating, and indeed participating in, sin? Have we not actually been crucified as Jesus was? Have we not fully accepted who we are... the sons and daughters of God?
Have we completed God’s will for us? Perhaps we don’t understand His will for our life well enough to know when we have started working at it, have reached certain mileposts in the effort, or completed it. One thing is for certain, Jesus knew what God’s will was for Him, and He stayed the course until at last that will had been accomplished in full. How wonderful it must have felt to have done all that God had asked. So how do we come to know the will that God has for us, and to know it well enough that we can work it to completion?
We talk about wanting to be like Jesus, and this should be our greatest desire, but do we really know all that this means? We want to be righteous, a teacher, humble, and to be free of sin, but when we say we are ready to pick up our cross do we really know what awaits us? There is more to this than just shouldering a cross for a long walk to Calvary. There is more that awaits us than just physically dying.
In His final moments Jesus prayed forgiveness for those who were crucifying Him, do we have it within us to do the same? Could we forgive those that we would call our enemies? If we listen to Jesus as he underwent the passion, and took His final breaths from the cross, it should become apparent to us that He never called them His enemies, and as a matter of fact He never called anyone His enemy in all that is written about Him... why not?
Do we place our will ahead of the will of God? Do we feel that what we want for our life should have a greater weight than what God would have us do? To dispel this notion we needn’t look any further than Jesus as He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the words He spoke regarding the subjugation of His will to God’s. We all have a personal will for our lives just as Jesus did when He prayed, but as children of God, and having placed Him above all else, then His will becomes master over everything in our life... even our own will, and greatest desires.
By the spiritual death of our old selves in Christ we are made to rise again, and to embrace eternal life. This is a cycle of life, death, and rebirth which is repeated many times over throughout God’s creation, and this is the template we were born to follow. We die as one person to sin, but by our death, and subsequent rebirth, we are raised a new creation, and give rise to many others who will follow us and be born in the image of God, and reborn into the perfection of His righteousness... just as we have been.
When Jesus speaks a truth to our heart, or God reveals Himself to us by showing us his will for us, how do we receive them? Do we study what they have for us as we try to reconcile it to our existing lives, or do we accept it just as it is delivered... in all of its wonder, awe, and even mystery? How sad it is that so many believers have lost the open receptiveness that faith demands, and have allowed their need for “mature” understanding to overcome the trust, amazement, and acceptance of a child in their spiritual lives.
Do you want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? Do you want to spend eternity in heaven with God our Father? Well, discipleship and eternity with God come at an extremely high price, and there is no amount of bargaining that can reduce the cost. The price includes great hardship, suffering, and sacrifices, and will strain us beyond our natural ability. Yet, the real question isn’t whether we have the full fare, and determination, but whether we are willing to pay this price at all, because it takes everything we have.
In this time of pandemic we have had our eyes fixed dramatically on dying, and many of us have watched as our loved ones have wasted away until death finally claimed them, and they were committed to the ground. Some of us are mortally struggling for our own lives right now, but although the prospect of recovering our health might often seem bleak, take heart, because as Christians, we have already won victory over death in Christ... not bodily, but eternally in our inner spiritual selves. Each day as our health dwindles away, the eyes of our soul are opened wider to our faith, and the peace of God draws nearer.
In following the course of our faith in Jesus Christ have we lost our life? I am not talking about martyrs who lose their physical lives, but every believer who will have lost his sinful nature... those things of the world that entice us away from God, or make us lukewarm in His mouth. Jesus is very specific about our need to do this... and about our speaking, and living out our lives as new creatures. How tight are we holding onto our old, and often pleasurable, life in the world? How do we judge the old from the new?
We spend a great deal of our prayer time asking God to do things for us, and the bulk of the remainder in thanking Him for what He has already done. Then, we go about our day, and dedicate most of our waking hours to fending for ourselves by working, or following other worldly pursuits. So, today let’s ask ourselves if there is anything that we can possibly give to God, the creator of all things, and look for ways we can give something, anything, to Him... just as He has so often given to us.