Resurrection Life part 3
"Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" (Romans 6:4-5). Baptism is where we really kind of make a declaration of acceptance regarding the cross. Because, let's be real, the truth is true whether you know it or not, believe it or not, accept it or not. But even though the truth has set us free and made us free, if we don't know that we're free we're going to act like we're not. Either way Christ's love controls us. Either we don't know that God loves us and we do everything we do to "get" that love that we think we don't have... or we know and believe that He does love us and we do everything we do in order to share (and in that way experience) the love that we have. Either way it's all about love--either trying to get it, or giving it away. Love is the central theme and the central focus of all of our lives. Love is what makes the world go 'round. Love is what we were created for. The God who is love created us in order to express Himself (His love). The key to this whole thing--the resurrection--is understanding that you have to die before you can live. You have to walk before you can crawl. Yesterday we looked at how we were already dead, and we needed a second death (the death OF death) in order to have life... and that more abundantly. Water baptism is us putting away that old man. Killing him (in a sense) in a watery grave. And moving on without him. Leaving the old behind. Embracing who we are on this side of the cross. Not just a sinner saved by grace... but a saint! Because a sinner saved by grace is not a sinner anymore. That part of our life is dead and gone. Sin has no power over a believer because sin is unbelief. A believer, by definition, cannot sin. How could he? That old man has passed away. All the old has passed away. We don't need to drag it around anymore. We can learn from it and move on. We can get to the place where our past doesn't define us... but the will and the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God defines us. We can walk in NEWNESS of life. We can experience the abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life of God (life of love) by being still and knowing that HE is God. By letting Jesus live HIS life in us, and through us, and as us. If we have been planted in the likeness of His death, we can also be in the likeness of His resurrection. If we understand what the cross was all about--that His death WAS our death--then we can understand that now, because of the cross, His life IS our life. We can stop trying to be someone we're not when we understand who we really are. Who we are in Christ, which is who Christ is in us. We can be free of sin and death. Think about it--if the Lamb of God took away the sin of the world... we're free from it. It's a non-issue. We don't have to deal with it or struggle with it. If we already died... and rose again... we don't need to deal with death either. Even when this mortal body gives up the ghost, that isn't the end of the story. It's just a transition from one thing to the next. So instead of worrying so much about what happens when (if) we die... we can focus on living while we're alive. We can focus on what we can do right now. The days of heaven on earth in which we are the kings and priests equipped and empowered to rule and reign... on the earth. In the here and now. Resurrection life doesn't start when your body dies. It has no beginning and no end. It simply is. And we can experience that eternity by simply knowing and believing!