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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Your Gift to the World
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:3,4)
The mainspring of Christianity is death and resurrection.
Christianity is thought of today as a religion. Actually it is a continuation of Judaism. In fact, Judaism itself is not a religion. It is man's attempt to systematize a revelation of God.
The Christian life is a series of deaths and resurrections. Our first nature, that which was born of our parents, may be considered a temporary form that God invented so He could create an eternal humanity.
When we receive Christ, our sins are forgiven. We then embark on the pathway of life. There is no true eternal life in our first nature. Eternal life has to come from outside, from the living God.
In order to embrace the true life we have to turn away from the old. This we do through prayer, step by step, as the Spirit of God leads and enables us.
Let us say someone offends us. The adamic nature is easily offended.
Now we have a choice. We can fume and seek revenge, or we can go to God in prayer until the bitterness is past and we are able to let the anger go and get on with life.
If we allow the offense to create anger and bitterness in us (I am talking to Christians now) we keep our adamic nature alive. Soon other sins will crop up. We will lose the portion of eternal life given to us in the beginning. (You can't hate your brother and have eternal life at the same time!)
If we go to God in prayer, staying at it until we are able to forgive and let the anger go, a part of our old nature will die on the cross with Christ. In its place will come a portion of the nature of the risen Christ. This is what it means to be born again.
Being born again is not some religious experience that begins and ends when you first receive Christ. Rather it begins then and must continue each day until a new creation comes forth.
Death and life! Death and life! Death and life! This is why the Christian life requires patience.
It's worth it, though. Unless you are pleased with your adamic nature (I am disgusted with mine) you may wish to be changed. Your family wishes you would change. Your friends wish you would change. The world wishes you would change. God wishes you would change. Here is your chance to please everybody.
Anything is better than this!
Make the best of it. Die with your boots on. Say farewell to Adam. You won't see him in the Kingdom of God.
The new man, Christ in you, is the Kingdom of God. Celebrate Christmas by giving to the world a new person—you!