What is your understanding of
what it means to be alive? Breathing in oxygen?
Heart pumping blood? Brain firing
off neurological messages? Is this
life? Popular culture would lead
us to believe that life is living each moment to the fullest and striving for
the most exhilarating experiences possible, experiences that get the heart
pumping and make us “feel” alive. Is this life?
If you are conscious of what’s going on around you right now, you are
enjoying the benefits being physically alive, and yet you may have moments when
you wonder if there is more to life than just your physical existence. You may have had a number of exhilarating
experiences, but those experiences fade causing us to wonder if there is more
to life as we seek a new experience. If
you don’t have an answer to the question of whether there is more to life, the
reason is because, . . . YOU ARE DEAD!
READ: Ephesians 2:1-10 (Colossians 2:13)
We can be physically alive, living and breathing, even
experiencing exhilarating moments in life and yet be spiritually dead and have
no idea what it means to experience true life.
How is this possible? 1 Timothy 5:6 says
that a self-indulgent widow is, “dead even though
she lives”. In the context of
contrasting life lived by the Spirit or by the flesh Romans
8:6 says, “to set the mind of the flesh is
death”. The Bible describes that there is a way
of living that is actually non-life or death.
Those who are spiritually dead are missing out on the life that God
created us to experience and enjoy.
But there is good news!
According to Ephesians 2:4-5 God demonstrates His
love by giving SPIRITUAL LIFE to those who are DEAD! Spiritual life
is true life and without it we are dead men and women walking.
How do we obtain spiritual
life? Why is obtaining spiritual life
important?
God gives us the spiritual “death penalty” because of our TRESPASSES and SIN (Eph. 2:1-3, 5) – Capital punishment is the legal process by which someone is physically put to death for a serious crime. In Genesis 2:16-17 God defines what is worthy of capital punishment, “you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” According to God’s law, one simple act of disobedience is deserving of the “death penalty”. Did Adam and Eve physically die? No, so physical death was not the penalty, it was something worse, a spiritual “death penalty”! The spiritual death penalty meant Adam and Eve were sent out (separated) from the presence of God and denied access to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24). The punishment for our sins is spiritual death! BUT . . .
God gives us spiritual life as a result of His MERCY and GRACE (Eph. 2:4-9) – The President of the United States has a unique power called “presidential pardon”. With this power the president can overrule the justice system, withhold punishment, and declare someone innocent who has committed a serious crime, even a crime deserving the death penalty. Miraculously, God uses His divine pardon not merely to withhold punishment, but to bring us back to life after our spiritual death sentence was already by carried out. Why? As a gift of His great “love” (vs 4), “mercy” (vs 4), “grace” (vs 5, 7, 8), and “kindness” (vs 7). Our spiritual death penalty is reversed restoring us back to true life . . . unhindered communion with a holy God!
God gives us the spiritual “death penalty” because of our TRESPASSES and SIN (Eph. 2:1-3, 5) – Capital punishment is the legal process by which someone is physically put to death for a serious crime. In Genesis 2:16-17 God defines what is worthy of capital punishment, “you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” According to God’s law, one simple act of disobedience is deserving of the “death penalty”. Did Adam and Eve physically die? No, so physical death was not the penalty, it was something worse, a spiritual “death penalty”! The spiritual death penalty meant Adam and Eve were sent out (separated) from the presence of God and denied access to the tree of life (Genesis 3:22-24). The punishment for our sins is spiritual death! BUT . . .
God gives us spiritual life as a result of His MERCY and GRACE (Eph. 2:4-9) – The President of the United States has a unique power called “presidential pardon”. With this power the president can overrule the justice system, withhold punishment, and declare someone innocent who has committed a serious crime, even a crime deserving the death penalty. Miraculously, God uses His divine pardon not merely to withhold punishment, but to bring us back to life after our spiritual death sentence was already by carried out. Why? As a gift of His great “love” (vs 4), “mercy” (vs 4), “grace” (vs 5, 7, 8), and “kindness” (vs 7). Our spiritual death penalty is reversed restoring us back to true life . . . unhindered communion with a holy God!
God gives us spiritual life to do GOOD WORKS (Eph. 2:10) –
What does someone do who is “truly alive”? The same thing for which we were created, . .
. to do “good works”. God uniquely created each and every one us to
have a meaningful purpose. As recipients
of God’s great mercy, we are to sacrifice our lives in order to fulfill God’s
good, acceptable, and perfect will for our lives (Rom.
12:1, 2; Mt. 5:16; 2 Cor. 9:8; Tit. 2:13-14).
CONCLUSION
Have you received God’s pardon
of the spiritual death penalty?
If we want to be raise from the dead and experience true spiritual life
we must put our faith in Jesus Christ who died for us (Rom.
5:8-9, 8:9-11)!
