Dead Man Walking part 2
I remember very clearly being at a camp meeting in West Virginia and the preacher saying, "If you've ever sinned raise your hand." And, of course, everybody did. Which was the point. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, right? Well, when I say "everybody did" I'm exaggerating. Because the person sitting next to me... didn't. And when I asked them about it they said, "That's the old me. The dead me. I'm not taking the rap for that." Blew my mind. Because it was a practical application of all the stuff we had been learning. To a degree that even the preacher himself didn't see. Changed my whole outlook on just about everything. Swept the whole, "I'm just a sinner saved by grace" mentality out of my head and out of my heart. Because the truth is... if you're saved by grace you aren't a sinner anymore. If you've been transformed... you aren't what you used to be anymore. There was a change. A shift. And not the turning over of a new leaf. Something much more radical and complete than that. It was going from one tree (the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree of death) to the other tree (the Tree of Life that is Jesus... that is love). Jesus cursed the fig tree because it couldn't produce fruit. God rid of it. Took it off the table and out of our road. So that we don't have to deal with it anymore. Or struggle with it. We can enjoy the love feast that God is and eat the fruit of the Spirit. "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). We can't be born again until we die again. The first death was Adam eating from that tree of death. The second death was Jesus dying on the cross. The death OF death. So, really, we don't need to die again. Jesus's death WAS our death. And I hear a lot of people say it like this, "Jesus died so we could live." And that's not exactly true. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is that Jesus died so we could die. We needed that second death so we could be born again. We needed to let go of everything that had come before so that we could move on without it. So that we could walk in newness of life. So that we could be who we were created to be. Let me quote 2 Corinthinas 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." A new creature. With old things done and gone. How many of you have sinned? Oh. None of you? Perfect. Bunch of saints in here. Bunch of the righteousness of God in here. Now that JESUS has dealt with sin--the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world--all we need to do is take care of the sin consciousness. BE transformed into what we've already BEEN transformed into. By the renewing of our mind. By the realization of the truth about who we are. Who we are in Christ. Which is who Christ is in us. Letting the mind of Christ that is already in us... BE in us. Using that mind. Thinking the thoughts of God. Thoughts of peace and not evil. That expected end that is really life without end. Seeing God clearly so that we can see ourselves clearly. The sinner is dead and gone. The saint is walking in newness of life. Jesus's death freed us from sin and death and now we simply need to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive unto God!