February 7, 2019 DEATH PRECEEDS LIFE
Colossians 3:3, 10, 12-13 “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” “and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image on the One who created him..” “And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.”
The Christian faith is so much more than ‘theology’ and so much more than a mental acceptance or agreement with the gospel; the gospel is not just for the class room, the seminary, or our place of study in the home. The gospel of the kingdom of God, when believed and received, impacts every aspect of our being; the gospel is radical in that it takes us out of one kingdom and places us in another kingdom-that’s dramatic. Life in God’s kingdom is totally unlike life that is of the world. Life in the kingdom of God, and the pivotal point of the gospel, is that of the believer having died to self. Our old nature, and the way of the world is to preserve and promote self-and that is the great divide-the basic conflict of the two kingdoms. The believer might have sincere and honest questions as to how one dies to self-after all, one has to live in the world and has to secure what is needed to live, to work, etc. I think it simplifies the idea of dying to self by understanding the instructions regarding ‘taking off’ and ‘putting on.’ As believers, we have the choice of walking according to our flesh, or according to the Spirit; we can choose to put off our old self, and put on the new self-who we are in Christ. Paul makes this clear in Romans 13:14: “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lust.” The problem for many is that it sounds too simple, too easy, that we can just choose to lay aside the old us and put on the new us-but that is just the case. When we put on the new self, we are choosing to walk in harmony with God, in our new identity. A sure way for any believer to live in frustration, emptiness and un-fulfilment is to live contrary to his or her true identity in Christ, not putting on the new self. Rather than seeing death to our self as something that would rob us of life, let us have the wisdom to see that only when we die to our way can we experience life to the fullest. This is a mystery, but we must remember that our ways (our old, natural self) are not God’s ways. Isaiah 55:8-9. A good starting point for us to put on the new man is to begin reading the ‘one-another’ verses in the New Testament and then putting into action, by doing what these verses tell us to do. The amazing thing is that the commands and instructions we read in the scriptures actually describe who we really are-they are clues that point to our new identity-who we really are. For example, scriptures tell us to ‘forgive one another;’ so as we forgive one another, we are living out of our new self and walking in our new identity-and we discover that forgiving others becomes natural because that is a part of our new nature. Let us say ‘good riddance’ to our ways, and embrace the new creation that we are.
Galatians 5:16 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.”
Ephesians 4:22-24 “in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”
Blessings,
Buddy
Colossians 3:3, 10, 12-13 “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” “and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image on the One who created him..” “And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.”
The Christian faith is so much more than ‘theology’ and so much more than a mental acceptance or agreement with the gospel; the gospel is not just for the class room, the seminary, or our place of study in the home. The gospel of the kingdom of God, when believed and received, impacts every aspect of our being; the gospel is radical in that it takes us out of one kingdom and places us in another kingdom-that’s dramatic. Life in God’s kingdom is totally unlike life that is of the world. Life in the kingdom of God, and the pivotal point of the gospel, is that of the believer having died to self. Our old nature, and the way of the world is to preserve and promote self-and that is the great divide-the basic conflict of the two kingdoms. The believer might have sincere and honest questions as to how one dies to self-after all, one has to live in the world and has to secure what is needed to live, to work, etc. I think it simplifies the idea of dying to self by understanding the instructions regarding ‘taking off’ and ‘putting on.’ As believers, we have the choice of walking according to our flesh, or according to the Spirit; we can choose to put off our old self, and put on the new self-who we are in Christ. Paul makes this clear in Romans 13:14: “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lust.” The problem for many is that it sounds too simple, too easy, that we can just choose to lay aside the old us and put on the new us-but that is just the case. When we put on the new self, we are choosing to walk in harmony with God, in our new identity. A sure way for any believer to live in frustration, emptiness and un-fulfilment is to live contrary to his or her true identity in Christ, not putting on the new self. Rather than seeing death to our self as something that would rob us of life, let us have the wisdom to see that only when we die to our way can we experience life to the fullest. This is a mystery, but we must remember that our ways (our old, natural self) are not God’s ways. Isaiah 55:8-9. A good starting point for us to put on the new man is to begin reading the ‘one-another’ verses in the New Testament and then putting into action, by doing what these verses tell us to do. The amazing thing is that the commands and instructions we read in the scriptures actually describe who we really are-they are clues that point to our new identity-who we really are. For example, scriptures tell us to ‘forgive one another;’ so as we forgive one another, we are living out of our new self and walking in our new identity-and we discover that forgiving others becomes natural because that is a part of our new nature. Let us say ‘good riddance’ to our ways, and embrace the new creation that we are.
Galatians 5:16 “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.”
Ephesians 4:22-24 “in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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