Stop Living Like a Zombie
Good Morning Friends,
Some people steal to make a living to buy food to eat and then go on a roller coaster as a slave to sin. Some people get so good at stealing that others hardly recognize that it is happening. I wonder if these people have forgotten who they really are…if they realize what they have given up. One might think the problem is poverty and just giving money will solve that problem and they are right on the surface of it but I think what God had in mind when God connected the death of Jesus on the cross and then his resurrection to our own salvation addressed the core of the apple.
Paul in what is perhaps the greatest letter ever written communicates to the Romans what is happening in his life and hopefully theirs about what happens when death becomes life. Friends, if you are dead to sin and alive to God, then Stop Living Like a Zombie.
Scripture: [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
Matthew 5:45 (NRSV)
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
Isaiah 5:20 (NIV)
Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin’s every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.
Romans 6:6-14 (The Message)
Message: Zombies have a growing market share when it comes to movies and what people choose to watch on TV and aesthetically that dissonance seems perverse. Confused…well if you are one of the undead serving two masters you will be. For nothing Jesus does stops us from sinning and nothing the devil does makes us sin. We choose and if we are balanced in our reasoning with faith we will see the connection between justification and holiness…. Between light and faith. But when death becomes life the struggle does not end. We have to depend and trust more on God now that we are free.
Pray we discover the freedom of God. Pray we stop acting as something we are not and begin being what we were meant to be. Pray we not fall for the big lie. Pray we choose wisely. Pray we realize that even though Christ makes believers dead to sin that the nerve of our evil instincts has not been fully severed. Pray we realize that we need Christ in our lives each and every moment. Pray when we think the battle is never going to end that we realize that believers are no longer slaves to sin. Pray we not stop short of the Resurrection.
Daily Devotionals 