So far, we've learned two facts:
Last week, I gave you an additional week to review because moving past these two facts without grasping their truth will empty the remainder of this chapter. Let's keep petitioning the Lord to speak to us and allow His truth to take root in our lives. Paul's prayer to the Ephesians in chapter 1 is my favorite. I've personalized it for you so that you can pray it over your own life:
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, to give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that I may know him better. I pray that the eyes of my heart be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which He has called me, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for those who believe.
We're building on both Fact #1 and #2, but the focus isn't on us (because we're dead). Rather, it's on God (because He lives in us). There's a simple outcome of a dead life: live for Christ. Turn in your Bible and read Romans 6:8-10. I have it below in the NIV translation:
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
We can't go back if we believe Fact #1 (we're dead) and Fact #2 (we're alive in Christ). We don't need to die again, get saved again, or live under condemnation again. There's no need to go back to the grave, friends.
John 11 captures a picture of death and foretells the resurrection power of God. Let's read about Lazarus starting in verse 38:
38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 "Take away the stone," he said. "But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days." 40 Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?" 41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." 43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."
Do you think Lazarus said, "No, I'll just leave the grave clothes on and go ahead and go back into that dark cave by myself"? Of course not. He was alive, raised from the dead, and ready to walk in life, not return to death.
You should be able to relate directly to this story. What physically took place in the life of Lazarus and the life of Jesus has spiritually taken place in you as a believer. Yet, so many Christians still walk around in their grave clothes. They are still living a life of death instead of choosing to walk in the life of Christ.
Stop wearing grave clothes. They are dirty and stinky, and you have a better option. We were given new garments and told in Ephesians 6:11 to "put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." You already have a new life with new clothes. You've been sanctified and set apart.
I encourage you to continue meditating, mulling around, and chewing on how Fact #1 and Fact #2 are a done deal reality—proven and trustworthy. It's not something we hope for: it's signed, sealed, and delivered. It's in your spiritual bank account. You must simply reckon the facts (reckon = calculate it and regard it in a specific way).
You are now in the risen Christ. You are living in Christ. You have that life in Christ. Sin no longer can reign as king in your mortal body because Christ now reigns.
"If God has given to you and to me an entirely new life in Christ, how can that new life spend itself after the fashion of the old life? Shall the spiritual live as the carnal? How can you that were the servants of sin, but have been made free by precious blood, go back to your old slavery?" —Spurgeon
Let's end in the same prayer we began with -- continuing to petition the Lord to speak to us and allow His truth to take root in our life.
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, to give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that I may know him better. I pray that the eyes of my heart be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which He has called me, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for those who believe.