Romans 6:13 And do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
As most of us recently commemorated and celebrated the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ a week ago, Paul's words reminded me again of that struggle many believers had way back then and some believers still today, and that is to live fully through the reality of exactly what Christ's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection accomplished in us!
Paul beautifully put it: present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead!
Here's where many miss the glorious work of Christ in us, because so often many people just try harder each day to be better people, yet do not understand that in Christ, who died for us and was raised from the dead, through faith in the Risen Lord, we now live from the power of His resurrection WITH the truth of what He has accomplished in us!
That's why Paul mentioned in Romans 4:25 earlier that Christ was delivered up BECAUSE OF (on account of) our transgressions and raised from the dead BECAUSE OF (on account of) our justification (Rom 4:25)!
Ah, praise Jesus!
Do you believe that Christ died for you?
Do you believe that He was raised from the dead?
Do you believe in what Scripture testifies? He did in you through His death and resurrection.
Then, dear friend, through that faith in Him we get to live to present ourselves this day and every other day unto God as a people who are alive from the dead and righteous in His sight unto His glory!
Ephesians 2:5-6 testifies what God did with you and I in Christ Jesus when He died on the cross and rose from the grave, for God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the boundless riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Together...With...Christ!
Through His death and resurrection, as we behold through faith what Christ has done for us, and in us and who He made us, we get to live as a people who are alive from the dead, instruments of righteousness, all to the honour and glory of Jesus!!!
Amen.