Thursday, October 13, 2011

October 13, 2011 … Alive In Christ

Passage of the Day: Romans 6: 4 … [see verse in bold/underlined] … Rom. 6: 1 - 4 … What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

My Journal for Today:
Romans 6 is all about the death and resurrection of the Christian spiritually. In the rebirth of conversion, we, who realize Christ as Lord/Savior, die to sin and now and forever live spiritually in Christ. Today is the thirteenth day of October. For me, the leap from death into eternity with God happened on another 13th day of the month in 1983. It was April 13th of that year; and the one passage of scripture, which I have memorized reflecting on what happened that day for me, is Galatians 2: 20; and since I have it in my heart in the NKJV, let me quote it: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no long I who live but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

On that day [4/13/83], many years ago now, I died to an old life of sin and was reborn into a new life in Christ, which is also reflected in another Pauline saying from 2nd Cor. 5: 17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone and the new has come!” I pray, as I write this and you read it, that you share in that death to self and the new birth in our Savior. As John Macarthur puts it, “Having died to the old life, Christians have been raised to share new life in Christ.” And that’s why we Christians – truly born-again believers – will live a life in Christ, being drawn away from the old life of carnal living and in pursuit of a life of Christlikeness. But does that mean that Christians won’t sin? Of course not; but having died to sin in Christ, we can now use God’s enabling [i.e., sanctifying] grace, ministered to us by His Spirit, to overcome sin as our Lord shapes us into His own image.

There’s really not much more I could ever add to this as a description of who I am as a Christian. On that day in April of 1983, I died to my former carnal life by faith in Christ; and now, living by that same faith in God, the Holy Spirit, Who indwells my spirit, lifts me to walk in this world, growing closer to Christlikeness day-by-day as I deal with my residual sin nature. Yes, to repeat what I’ve said above, I am still a sinner, who can choose to sin; but I am now a redeemed sinner, who can rather choose to live for Christ and to live in freedom from those old sin choices by the grace of God, as it says in Gal. 2: 20, living for the One “… Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

There was a time in my life that I lived as an abomination to God, living and acting in enmity with my Lord; but now, by His grace, I live by faith, and even in the flesh, to glorify God, Who is my Lord and Savior. I don’t know about you, but the now life in Christ is so much more alive than that former life of sin and death in the flesh. And to think it will be that way for eternity as I grow closer and closer to the One Who saved me. How glorious the thought!

My Prayer Today: May God be praised for His saving grace! Amen

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