Welcome to Hank’s Place —
Today is Easter Sunday, marking Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead. He is risen indeed, hallelujah! Let all the world rejoice!
This is so vitally important, because as Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:14 says, “if Christ has not been raised, our faith is futile and we are still in our sins.” And those who have died in Christ have simply — perished.
In His death and resurrection our sins have been washed away, and His righteousness imparted to us. But there is more…!
WE have died with Him. WE have been born again (“risen to life”) by that same resurrection power of God! Paul spends Romans chapter 6 explaining this spiritual fact, instructing us to reckon ourselves dead to sin, the sin that once enslaved us and crushed life out of us — and count ourselves as alive to God forever!!! From this time forward we are finally and eternally able NOT to sin. When sin comes knocking at the door, we can say “Go away!”
We have been made spiritually alive. Ephesians 2:5. Paul now writes that because we died with Christ in that way, we will also live with Him. We continue to live in the flesh, of course, but our lives are now directed by our faith in Christ.
Too few of us are aware of this liberation. We are free from sin’s bondage and free from the social dogmas of today regarding self-image, personal ambitions, and financial security. We are free!
Paul mentions Jesus’ motive for giving Himself for us: LOVE. Christ died for us because He loves us. Unlike the unyielding system of the law, Christ is a person motivated by His love and concern for us. And because of this there is more…!
As Paul declares in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Notice Paul reveals Christ lives IN him. In all believers. In Colossians 1, beginning with verse 25, he explains there is a divine mystery, “that is, the mystery which had been hidden from the past ages and generations, but now has been revealed to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what the wealth of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles is, the mystery that is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Yes, more than being set free from guilt and our sins removed, salvation has come that we would share in and possess the glory of Christ Jesus. Christ IN us; and we IN Christ.
Living IN the Holy One, who is making and keeping us holy, and eternally alive! Being IN Christ is not some theoretical, hypothetical, conjectural, intangible, philosophical, abstract supposition. It is our reality!
Friend, dwell on this reality this Resurrection Day — and COME ALIVE!
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