The Beauty of His Story: Death & Life

So far we have established that Satan works to keep us from being good and to keep us in bondage.

The truth is, we're even worse off than that.

Because of our sin, we're dead (Ephesians 2:1).

Death

We see it in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve ate the fruit. God casts them out of the Garden so they wouldn't have access to the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:22-24). Prior to sinning, they had access to eternity (physical life) in God's presence (spiritual life). After sinning, they had an expiration date (physical death) and had to live outside of God's presence (spiritual death). 

Paul explains later (Romans 5:12) that Adam and Eve's sin brought death to the whole world. That includes you and me. We may be physically alive (until we die), but we're spiritually dead.

We're talking totally and completely dead here, folks. Not the "mostly dead" that Westley experiences in The Princess Bride. There's no magical chocolate we can swallow to reverse the process. The word used in Ephesians 2:1 means "dead; useless; ineffective."

So what can you do when you're dead?

Nothing.

And that's just what Satan wants. The best way to make you ineffective for the Kingdom of God is to make you dead.

Life

Here's the thing: when you're dead, you can't do anything to make yourself alive again. Just like being made good or being set free, being made alive is something God has to do for you.

And thankfully He did just that. He sent Jesus to die so we could be made alive.

Jesus' death wipes out our sin which is what causes us to be dead (Romans 6:23). When we choose to let God make us alive, our sinful self gets crucified with Jesus (Romans 6:6), wiping away its power and its effects in our lives, including death.

But Jesus didn't stay dead. He came back to life again. And because He came back to life, we get to come back to life, too! This means physical life in the future when we get to spend eternity in God's presence. But it also means spiritual life now. It means that instead of a life of slavery to the power of sin, we get to live a life of power from God, the power to be who He created us to be and do what He created us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

So here's the question: Are you alive or are you dead? If the answer is "dead," all you have to do is ask, and God will make you alive again. Life is a free gift because of what Jesus did on the cross. And I don't know about you, but I can't think of a better gift.