Kevin is the maintenance man at the hotel I checked into today. Around Kevin’s neck was a silver chain and a cross pendant. Kevin greeted me and I struck up a conversation with him. He looked down at my brand new shoes and commented how much he liked them, in return I told him that I liked his necklace but didn’t stop there.
“Do you know what I love about the cross?” I asked Kevin but before he could answer I told him that “I have been to Calvary, while Jesus was nailed to the cross I was nailed to the cross, while Jesus died on the cross I died on the cross and was buried with him, and when He arose from the dead I was resurrected with Him.” Now I wait for His promise of deliverance which I hold the title deed to in my heart. I am dead to sin and alive to God!
This is what the Bible tells me and this salesman stands firm on the Word of God.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin. Romans 6:1-7
Today I will make two quick points in regards to my death and life.
- By faith I died with Christ Jesus
The word Baptism means to be fully immersed under water. I have been baptized but my baptism has no impact on my deliverance. The word Baptism also means to be identified with. Baptism is symbolic of my faith and new identity in Christ. The old me is gone by grace through faith because of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. The moment I trusted in Jesus my sin was placed on His account and God looks upon my unrighteous state no longer. I am dead to sin and God doesn’t hold my sin against me. So, does this give me freedom to sin? May it never be! The cross is glorious due to its effect but the Christian should brood over the cross because when we sin it is as if we lay the lashes from the cat o nine tails across our Savior’s back, it is as though we wield the hammer and drive the nails though the flesh and bone of Jesus. It is as though we crucify Jesus all over again.
I died with Christ and I died to sin, therefore I am to strive over my life span to cease sinning and grow in the likeness of Jesus
2. I am alive to God.
The Crucifixion of Jesus would be for not if God had not raised Him from the dead. The resurrection is proof positive that Jesus is Messiah and the sacrifice of His body was received. I identify with Jesus through the resurrection of His body because I walk in a newness of life and when I die I will keep on living eternally. I was once alive in my body yet dead in my trespasses now by grace I am alive to God and called His child.
May I ask you today if you have been to Calvary? Have you died to your sin and are you alive in God. I sure pray so!
Kevin’s necklace brought a joyful remembrance to me today, that I identify with Christ because I have partaken in His death and Resurrection. Yet I brood over the consequences my sin had on the Unblemished Lamb of God, Jesus.
Blessings,
The traveling salesman and His Bible.
Adventures of a Salesman and his Bible. 