LIVE A NEW LIFE
31st Mar 2021
Romans 6:4 says, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
The great message of Easter is that when Jesus died on the cross, we died with Him, so that the life of our flesh went to the Cross, and just as Jesus rose from the dead, we too rise to live the same resurrection life that Jesus won for us on the Cross.
Are we living this death and resurrection life? It seems that so many people are trying to improve the flesh, when it needs to die! It is not more trying we need, but more dying!
I well remember going to Strangeways Prison with Colin Urquhart, and as 500 prisoners gathered noisily and not very reverently in the chapel, I wondered how on earth Colin was going to get through to them. His opening words were, “I have good news for you today, God does not want to reform you, (raucous laughter) He wants you to die! (complete silence)” They listened as Colin shared the gospel.
The message of death and resurrection flows through the letters of Paul. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 he declares, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ Jesus he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come!” We so need to live the new creation life.
We can think of Easter and say, Jesus died to cleanse and forgive me for my sins, which is true and wonderful, but the cross did so much more. Jesus paid the price for our sins, he defeated the power of the devil, but he also made the way for us to live resurrection life in the power of the Spirit.
The verse that sums it up best is Galatian 2:20 where Paul declares, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
by Charles Sibthorpe
