0405 DEATH AND RESURRECTION

DEATH AND RESURRECTION

I was talking to myself today about Romans chapter 6. Here is what I said.

I’ve just been thinking, I was quite a scoundrel before I came to Christ. But God’s grace is endless, so there is no limit to how much wrongdoing is forgiven! It makes me wonder sometimes. I think, if grace is endless, why not just do wrong as much as I want? I mean, the more I do wrong, the more He forgives, right?

But then I realize that I’m thinking backwards. Why would I ever want to go back? I am forgiven, sure enough. But I’m also made alive! And if Christ made me alive, that should mean that I am dead to doing wrong. 

At my baptism, I was lowered under the water. It was like I was joining Christ in His death and His burial.Then, when I came back up from the water, I was raised back to life, as He was. Now I live a new life in Him. It was like a promise: Since I joined him in his death, I also get raised to life as He was. My old nasty self was nailed to the cross with Christ, which means that all my nasty wrongs were killed there. Those wrongful habits don’t control me anymore. And if I died with Him, I’m sure that I will also live with Him, and my old nasty self no longer has to listen to that voice telling me to do wrong. I was set free from the power of doing wrong when I died with Christ. And since I died with him, I know that I will also live with him, because Christ was raised from the dead and will never die again—death no longer has power over him! This was the whole point of His death: He died once to break the power of wrong, but now he lives for the glory of God. So I guess I’m dead to that power that once held me down, alive to God through Christ Jesus.

I don’t have to listen to that voice inside of me anymore, and I don’t have to give in for a moment to the old things I used to do. Instead, I live using my whole body as an instrument to do what is right to give honor to God. Wrongdoing no longer owns me, for I now live under the freedom of God’s grace.

It brings me back around to think, I’m under God’s grace. That means I am not under the law! So, does that mean I can go back to doing wrong? Surely not! Because then I’d be a slave to my favorite selfish choice. Being a slave is not an option for me. I am a slave. My only choice is which of the slave masters to serve. Once I make my choice to obey someone, I serve them because I am a slave to whoever I obey. I gotta serve somebody. I can choose the road to death by doing wrong, or I can choose the road to life by loving and obeying the right things God does. It was easy to be a slave to doing whatever I want. I end up in impurity and lawlessness, and on my way to death. I don’t want to follow God’s laws, and I am not able to, even if I wanted to.

When I was a slave to doing wrong, I guess you could say I was free from having to do right. Yet I’m ashamed of the things I used to do, which were leading me to eternal doom. But now I am free from the power of doing wrong, so I guess you could say I have become a slave of God. And I am glad for the things I now do, which are leading me to eternal life. Because when I do wrong, I have earned death. But the free gift of God is life without end through Jesus Christ my Lord.