You are dead. That’s a bit morbid sounding, isn’t it?
I am dead – really?
Well, that’s how Paul puts it both here and back in Romans 6. When we accepted Christ, our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that from now on we should not serve sin.
Because our old man is dead we no longer are captive to sin. Our sin is no longer what defines us. My life is now hidden in Christ’s life.
Now that’s really pretty challenging. It brings up something we might not like to think about. Who is to blame when I sin?
It’s easy to say things like ‘I can’t help it’ or ‘that’s just the way I am’ or ‘I was just born with a temper, it’s a family trait’ or ‘that’s just my Irish temper.’
It would be great if we could just carry on and blame it on who we were or blame it on the old man or that kind of thing. But here we read that the old me is dead. I am crucified with Christ. I am a new creation.
And here – my life is hid with Christ life. The brutal truth is that when I sin I sin. It is my decision. I always have a choice. The problem is though that even though I am a new creation and the old man is crucified I still have to live in a flesh that demands my attention. But I also have Christ in me.
My option – I can walk after the flesh or I can walk after the spirit. I can only walk after the Spirit as I rely in Christ in me and recognise that sin does not have any power of me.
Christ in me is my only hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment