Dead Man Walking part 3
The old has passed away. The new has come forth. We don't need to be held back or held down by our pasts. Or by anything else, if I'm being perfectly honest. It's my favorite verse, "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy" (Jude 1:24). We don't have to fall. We don't have to stumble. The Lamb of God took away the sin of the world. We don't have to deal with sin. What we find ourselves dealing with is sin CONSCIOUSNESS. THINKING that we are sinners. Dragging around the corpse of that dead old man. Jesus dealt with sin. Defeated it. Took it away. Cast it into the lake of fire. It's not for us. We're not sinners. We're saints. Where sin abounded--before the cross--grace did much more abound ON the cross. Through the cross. Because of the cross. Look, if you're dead you can't be prosecuted for the crimes you committed when you were alive. It's like getting a blank page. A fresh start. A new beginning. Wherein you don't have to let anything that came before dictate to what comes next. Except in the case of experience. Learning and growing. You don't have to punish yourself, is my point. Or let anyone else punish you. You are NOT what people call you, but you ARE what you answer to. What you believe about yourself is what is, in a very real sense, what is true about yourself. So don't let anything other than Jesus define you. You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Look at Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." This is a big one. This is the whole "doing things out of the posture of rest" idea. The life I live is lived by the faith OF the Son of God. Jesus's faith. Jesus's life. HIM living His own abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of love in me, and through me, and as me. HIS Spirit. HIS life. HIS love. Filling me up to overflowing until there's not room enough to receive it. Until there's not room for anything else. If I'm full of love I don't have room for sin. God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all. How could there be? How could light shine and darkness not flee? When light shines darkness has no choice BUT to flee. That's the power of light. The power of love. Like Abraham Lincoln said, "I destroy my enemies by making them my friends." We're not out to hurt anybody. We're out to love everybody! That's a life worth living. That's what this life is for, and that's what this life is all about. So focus on those good things. Those excellent and perfect things. Don't let mistakes define you or disqualify you. Nothing can drag you down when Jesus is holding you up. Glory to Him that is able to keep us from falling. When you're standing on the Rock you cannot be shaken. When you're walking in faith you're walking in the light. Walking in love! And when you're walking in love you WILL get to where you're supposed to go. A dead man can't walk unless there is a new power moving his feet. That power is Jesus. We don't follow in His foot steps. We let Him make His own foot steps with our feet. That power that gets us moving... is love!