What it means to be alive in Christ

Beloved of God, consider three separate occasions where Jesus raised the dead back to life:

• Jairus' daughter - dead probably for just a couple of hours (Mark 5.)
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• The son of the widow of Nain - Dead for much longer than Jairus' daughter (Luke 7.)
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• Lazarus - in the tomb for four days and already bringing out an odour (John 11.)

Which one of them do you think was "more dead?"

Beloved of God, no matter the state of deadness one is in, whether it is "she looks like she is just sleeping" dead or "only the skeleton is left" dead, dead is dead.

Whether five minutes dead, one hour dead, one day dead or 100 years dead, dead is dead; the dead can only produce rot and decay. All three that Christ raised to life were formerly dead, albeit in different stages of decay. Now consider Colossians 2:13-

"When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh (worldliness, manner of life), God made you alive together with Christ, having [freely] forgiven us all our sins,"

Before we encountered Christ and the life that He freely gives to all who believe, we were all (spiritually) dead in our sins/trespasses. How "dead" in sins were we -

Stole a pin? Murdered someone? Fornicated? Told a small lie to save someone's life? Not that sinful? Sinning out of every orifice in one's body? Really smelling with the odour of sinful deeds? Still giving off a nice perfume of "good deeds" like the freshly dead? Outside of life in Christ, all are in the same category of "dead in sins" and destined to deteriorate even with care from the living.

Before God gave us life in Christ, all of us were formerly dead in sins- destined to keep on producing maggots and awful smells of sinful deeds and then disintegrating. The one who is dead in sins is the one who is trying to produce good works or have life by his own will-power. He rejects the life that God freely gives through Christ.

As it was with Lazarus, the son of the widow of Nain and Jairus' daughter, it does not matter what the level of deterioration into "deadness in sins" that one finds himself in. Dead is dead. Without "God made you alive together with Christ, having [freely] forgiven us all our sins" and with zero human effort contribution to this Christ-life, all are dead in sins. No amount of good deeds or law-keeping can make any difference to this "dead" state that we who believe were in before God gave us life in Christ, just as no amount of self-dressing, perfuming and tending could bring to life Lazarus and the other two dead that Christ raised from the dead.

Believer, because He loved us so, God sacrificed His own Son for us; He made us alive together with Christ. He forgave all our sins. Without the Christ-life in we who believe, we are no different from the vilest offender, no matter how godly we strive to be. Christ shows us in His conversation with Pilate that sin has degrees of greatness; John 19:11 -

“Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.”

James 2:10 says: “For whosoever shall keep the whole law yet stumble at one point, he is guilty of all.”

Understand the above verse in terms of “all have sinned.” Without Christ as our righteousness (Romans 5:9), the one who only lied about his location on the phone for a good reason is just as guilty as the world's vilest homosexual pedophile.

The Law of Moses demands that every sin be punished to the uttermost, whether rebellion in children (which attracts the death penalty according to Leviticus 20/Deut. 21,) fornication or homosexuality.

Like the Pharisees, many churchgoers publicly discriminate against "core sinners" because their sins are "worse" in their opinion. Some pastors even pick on particular sins and make you feel that you are "still okay" because you are not committing such sins. Friend, this is akin to dead Jairus' daughter thinking that she is not as bad as dead Lazarus because her own "dead" is only a few hours old and not as smelly! This is pride and foolishness: to think that "my sins are better than yours." As if it makes the wages that each will pay for sin any different. As if it can make someone less dead.

The wages of sin is death.

So, a slow and painful death by a blunt machete for the pedophile homosexual because of the “gravity” of his sin. A quick and painful death by a sharp machete for the fornicator. Painless death by lethal injection for the one that only told a small lie. All sinners will die. But many among us are more concerned with the kind of sins that other people are sinning, the method of delivery of death and the kind of accommodation that "hardcore sinners" will have in hell rather than death itself- A death that Christ died for all. Consider His response to the Pharisees in Mark 2:17 below:

“15 That night Levi invited his fellow tax collectors and many other notorious sinners to be his dinner guests so that they could meet Jesus and His disciples. (There were many men of this type among the crowds that followed Him.) 16 But when some of the Jewish religious leaders saw Him eating with these men of ill repute, they said to His disciples, “How can He stand it, to eat with such scum? 17 When Jesus heard this, He told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

Very crucial, verse 17: a person who does not believe that he is sick isn't likely to want the services of a doctor. Such are still blinded. One has to acknowledge his sins and utter lack of righteousness in order to benefit from God's saving Grace who saves from sins, and this we do by Grace alone.

Professing to belong to the Good Shepherd while trying to normalise, accommodate or shove whatever God's Law describes as sin down the throats of others because "I was born that way" is not of Christ. Such who do this do not (yet) see their need for the Good Shepherd who came to redeem us from slavery to the Law and to save us from our sins.

Thank God that the church is like a hospital filled with believers in Christ, all of whom are alive because of one reason:

"God made you alive together with Christ, having [freely] forgiven us all our sins,"

We who believe are all in different stages of recovery and as we look to Jesus Christ alone for salvation, we are being transformed to wholeness by our Shepherd and Physician, Jesus Christ. In Him, we get to look forward to having life and having it more abundantly. No more decay into death for us. And all through Christ working in us. And like the lost sheep that was found, on His shoulders- utterly dependent on Him for righteousness and strength with no self-medication whatsoever - we never remain the same. Our path gets brighter and brighter… Matthew 1:21 says of Him-

"She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

Also Titus 2:14- "He gave His life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us His very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds."

In Christ, we are not under Law but under Grace, not so that we should normalise or accommodate what God's word says is sin and continue to wallow in same but for us to be freed and saved from those sins by Christ. We have been given Grace to see that everyone born of Adam is a helpless sinner by default (Romans 5:19;) held captive by sin and death from which no man is able to save himself.

Believer, "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh (worldliness, manner of life), God made you alive together with Christ, having [freely] forgiven us all our sins,"

We who believe were all formerly dead in sins- whether "fornication" dead, "lied for a good reason" dead or "murderer" dead- no matter the degree of sins, outside of Christ, we were all dead.

As believers in Christ, God has raised us from the dead and made us alive Christ. Just as people who suffer from diarrhea, missing limbs or whatever ailment are still alive and have hope of getting better with the help of a physician, in Christ, we still mess things up from time to time, but in His care, utterly trusting and depending on salvation, our path only gets brighter and brighter unlike that of those who are dead.

Christ did not come to tell bad people to try to be good by their own will-power. He came to raise the dead (in sins) to life in Himself. He knows how screwed up we are of ourselves. He came not to condemn or do SMH at us but to save-

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.” John 3:17.

This verse is right after John 3:16 which opens with “For God so loved the world......" That “world” includes everybody. Christ died for all and saves all who believe in Him, even salvation from sin and death, no matter who we are:

“21 But now God has shown us a way to be made right with Him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. 22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.”

This is Grace- undeserved, unearned, unmerited favour.

Believer, no matter how long ago or how recently it has been since God raised us from the dead and made us alive in Christ, no matter how Grace-filled we are, no matter the exploits that we are doing, we are still as 100% helpless of ourselves and as WHOLLY dependent on Him for everything as we were on the day that He called us to Christ. For the true believer, our story is always "None of self. All of Christ." He is our only boast.

The healthy do not need the Physician. Sheep that can take care of themselves don't need the Good Shepherd. None of us has "arrived" yet. Christ is the Physician/Shepherd of all who believe in Him. In Him, God sees us as righteous, "even though we are guilty of many sins." See Romans 5:16-

"And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins."

Antichrist pastors preach dependence on the arm of flesh (human effort) that will fail to make one righteous/godly aka "be like God," just as Satan did with Eve. Such call this truth in Romans 5:16 above "blasphemy" and "license to sin" but God's word in the very next verse says differently. His word says receiving His abundance of Grace and His gift of righteousness to us in Christ is the Way to live in triumph over sin and death: Romans 5:16-17-

"And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one Man, Jesus Christ."

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