The life we have is different than before salvation, as different as night and day and life and death. When you go to a cemetery and talk to your loved ones, you don’t expect anyone to answer. Only remains are at the graveyard. We were like that before we were saved. After salvation we were saved to rise from spiritual death to a new life, a risen life. This mindset keeps us going. Sin and death don’t have to have dominion over us.
Colossians 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. 5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth…10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.
As believers, too many have too shallow a relationship with God. They are like a light switch–off and on. They won’t let themselves grow into the knowledge that comes as they do and get frustrated. We all go through a “teething period.” A baby cannot drive a car or speak or teach a glass. He/she has to grow from that baby into a child, a teen and then an adult. When we get saved we experience the miracle of the new birth. The Bible says we must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven. We cannot make this happen on our own. Something “gotta hold of me” and a change took place on the inside. We were dead in our sins and that separated us from God. The wages of this sin is death. When we trusted Jesus as the risen Savior, he regenerated us. That means to bring to life that which is dead. When I first got saved that was hard to understand. I just had to believe it. I may get numb to it. I may not feel saved. We’re emotional beings and our senses change if we feel bad. If our salvation depended on feelings we’d be lost. Through it all there is a “know so” to our salvation. We know we’re saved. Even after all these years the newness is there. His mercies are new every morning.
Jesus died once and for all. But on the third day the stone was rolled away. He never went back into the tomb. He went to the right hand of the Father and is our living Savior. We are risen with him. Our faith makes us rise with him. Verse 3 says For ye are dead. How can we be risen and dead at the same time? At salvation the old man is slain. Jesus rebirthed us and put a new creature in us making us new in Christ. Through the power of his death he saves us from our sins. As Jesus arose and is alive forevermore, we rise too. There is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. All are symbolized for us through the regeneration. We die to sin and are buried in the act of baptism. Salvation makes us risen with him. Don’t think of yourself as dead except as being crucified with Christ, dead to the world. The temptation to sin is strong. The flesh works on us. But we are a new creature, risen with Christ. Sin and the flesh do not have to have dominion over us. We keep the old man down through Christ. You don’t belong to the devil. You don’t belong to sin. There is a means of escape. Say no and mortify the flesh.
We know how to sin. Let’s study how to walk in the Spirit and please God. Walk as new creatures, children of light. All because we are risen with Christ. Seek things above. God opens the storehouse every day. If we but ask him he’ll supply what we need. How many days we never ask. We gained it all when we gained Jesus. Satan and sin are headed for the lake of fire.
We look at it the wrong way. I remember thinking before I got saved that a Christian life would be a dull life. But I was dead. I didn’t know. I came to life when I got saved. Let’s stop acting like we’re dead. We don’t have to wait to enjoy life. Enjoy it now. Verse 4 says When Christ, who is our life…He is now and one day we’ll appear with him in glory!
Adwolfe Freewill Baptist Church 