We will only briefly touch this massive topic. Hopefully after reading the recent posts about what Man suffered due to the consequences of the Fall, you see how much Christ has restored back to you through His death, burial, resurrection and ascension.
You are more than being reconciled back to God. He enables you to have everything once lost given back to you and more. Now you also have the Son Himself as your brother, your friend, your Lord and King, who will always interact with the Father on your behalf as long as you put your faith in Him and walk in His Spirit. You are immune to the power of sin and death.
Paul exclaimed with great excitement and joy this truth and revelation in many places. Let’s visit some of them:
1 Co 15:54-57 [NIV]
54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55″Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Rom 8:31-39 [NIV]
31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-more than that, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Rom 11:33-36 [NIV]
33Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
34″Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
35″Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?”
36For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Just as Adam and Eve chose to give away the wisdom of God and choose their own way, to eat of the tree of death, each person now has the choice each day to choose to give away their inherited life of Sin and Death, and partake in the abundant life of God through His Christ. Adam and Eve were given much freedom (a wide road) in God, but chose to take the only thing forbidden to them (the narrow road). Because we have inherited this curse, we have the opposite choice. We can choose the wide road of death (by going our own way and using our own wisdom), or we can choose the narrow road of Christ back to the place of God’s son (which we will cover next). Jesus told us that in order to have true life, we must follow Him in chopping down the tree of death that we inherited. In Him, we can recover everything that God intends for us.
John 12:24-26 (NIV)
“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.”
This post is _Part 5_ in a series on The Cross. To continue with this series, click on Part 6. To use this as a growth tool to better understand your own calling, you might start by reading the explanation of this series and then read Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 3 and Pt 4.
Photo credit: Ms. Boo