You're Dead part 4
If you're dead, you don't have to keep dragging around the corpse. You can let it all go. You can be free. You can move out of death and into life. And I know I quote these two verses a lot, but I'm going to do it again. Because one of the things my dad taught me is that repetition is a powerful learning tool. Faith comes from hearing, right? And hearing from the Word (that is Jesus, that is love) of God. So the more we hear these things, the more we can believe them. Ok. 1 John 3:14, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." And John 5:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." And I think the word we need to press in on today is "passed." We have passed from death unto life. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. Before the cross. Where sin abounded--before the cross--grace did much more abound--at the cross, through the cross. We ARE dead, BUT we have passed unto life. Our life is hid with God in Christ. I think tomorrow, to end this Rant series, I'm really going to hit home what it means to be hid in God. Hid in love. But for today I want to make it as clear as possible that we have don't have to deal with all of those things that we've dealt with our whole lives. Old wounds. Mistakes. Bad decisions. I can still remember--I'll probably never forget--when we were at a Church Conference in West by God Virginia and the preacher said, "I want you to raise your hand if you've ever sinned in your life." And, of course, everybody did. Except one person. And when I asked them why they didn't, they said, "That person is dead. I'm a new creature." And in my brain--in my heart--that truth exploded. We have to let go of all that shame, and guilt, and misery that has held us back and held us down for so long. Look: If Jesus is holding you up (and He is), nothing can drag you down. That old man died. In a watery grave of baptism. The putting off, the laying down, of everything we quite frankly don't need anymore. It doesn't matter what happened when. What matters is what you're doing right now. What matters is NOT abiding in death. Understanding that we HAVE (past tense) passed from death unto life. That's not something we need to do. That's something that Jesus did for us. And as us. That's something that happened 2,000 years ago. Life came. Death passed away. The second death. The death OF death. And now we can live. Because we know that we are loved. No love? No life. KNOW love... know life! Living and loving aren't just connected, they are the same thing. To live is to love. To love is to live. You can't have one without the other. And we have it all. Because God gave us His only begotten Son. We don't have to suffer condemnation. We can lay it down and leave it. Walk in newness of life. Walk... in love!