"So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!
That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country.
Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.
That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.
What Is True Freedom?
So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!
I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness?
As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.
But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.
Romans 6:1-23 from the Message Bible
This little chunk of instruction and guidance from the bible is a fav right now. Being in the U.K. for these past few weeks have been incredible. We are now almost half way through our outreach and God has been so amazing, just like always :) His love is penetrating the lives of hundreds of people who now know about him, and they are either choosing to follow Him or not, even still, the seed is being planted!
Doing straight up evangelism 6 days of the week is not an easy thing,I have come to again realize. I now know, more than ever, that being a Christian really isn't always easy...but, then again, I am no where near dead, and I have countless blessing in my life too, so I really can never complain! Haha.
The reason I decided to post those select verses is because that is part of the message this world, our world, needs to hear. Everyone I end up talking to after one of our shows, or just at random on the street here in the U.K. will hear me say this message at some point: A life without God is a life in slavery to sin. It's so true! When we commit our lives to follow Jesus as close as we can, we are set free from that slavery, and can really see the freedom found and Christ! And the job appointed to those already free, is to lead other people into that freedom. Sharing with someone the good news of a free life in the love relationship with God is one of the biggest privileges that God has granted us! So, I encourage all who read this, do that! There should never be an excuse for someone not to know you're in love with God, if you follow Him close enough, He should be rubbing off of you, you know? Like the shining face of Moses in the OT! hahah! Wouldn't that be cool?
Well, there is what I have been going through lately. Hope you enjoyed it! Remember this: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."
1 Corinthians 13
Nothing you do matters if the love you receive from God is behind it! and with that, I love you all! Until next time!
Aaron Reeves
oh! ps...just an update on how things are going: Our time in Glasgow has been incredible! We did our production on monday night and again on Friday night and have seen 732 people come to Jesus since our time of arrival in the U.K. and of course and always in heart-felt follow-up with those people as well! Praise God! We head out to Birmingham, England on Sunday, and we know that will be a blast! Thanks for all your prayers and God Bless!
Glasses!
