Today’s Faith Workout was written by Kelly Barcol, our Chaplain Role Champion, Owner of CrossFit Winnersville, and Pastor at Winnersville Community Center.
What is life? Some may say…
A heart beating, blood flowing, biological life
It’s a faraway place, like heaven, where we will be forever
It’s a quality, a fullness
Some say Jesus is life!
There are a lot of ways people describe life in our culture today, but I want to focus on…
LIFE IS THE OPPOSITE OF DEATH
The Bible says…
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 (NIV)
This verse is not talking about a physical, biological death, so it is also not talking about that type of life. This is talking about a spiritual death, and life.
The Bible is clear that sin brings death. It’s also clear that Jesus brings life and is life.
As a Christ Follower, we have life in us. Spiritual life! Jesus coming into our spirits and giving us new spiritual life. Before we met Christ, we were spiritually dead. Dead in our sin. We were separated from God which is death, because God is life. Jesus is life!
You see, we inherited this spiritual death and identity of a sinner from Adam and Eve. Just like you inherited your hair color and eye color from your parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents and so on… all the way back to Adam and Eve… you inherited spiritual characteristics. Sinner, death, condemnation, wrath… Before surrendering to Jesus these are some of the words that describe Who We Are.
The good news is, Jesus took care of our sin in order that we might have life. He had to in order for us to have spiritual life. On the cross, He became sin and took on the punishment for sin, which is death, that we might not be punished. This is what we call grace. God gives us grace instead of punishment for our sin when we accept Him into our lives.
As a Christ Follower, we no longer have a punishment for our sin. There is none left! We are no longer Identified by words like sinner, death, condemnation, wrath… This no longer describes Who We Are!!!
Some may say, “well, isn’t that soft on sin?” … “All people have to do is become a Christ Follower and their sins are forgiven like they never happened?” “Aren’t you letting people off the hook?”
The truth is… sin is big, bad, and ugly and God was hard on sin! He was the only one who could take care of the sin problem. Because the sin problem was too big and ugly for you and me. We couldn’t do anything to remedy what we as pre-believers inherited from Adam and Eve, spiritual death. It took God, Himself, coming down to earth, putting on skin, and becoming sin, dying for us, and taking on the punishment of sin for us to have forgiveness of sin and HIS LIFE! Sin was SO BIG, that you and I couldn’t do anything about it. We needed Jesus!
If you are not a Christ Follower, you haven’t taken that step across the line of faith, and this is vital information. Without Jesus, not only are you described as a sinner and have a tendency to sin, you are spiritually dead! And you can’t do anything about it. You might think that you need to clean yourself up before you come to Jesus because you are just too bad, or have sinned way too much. The truth is… there is nothing you can do to change your identity from a sinner, to stop sinning for good, and to make yourself come to LIFE!
Only Jesus can take a spiritually dead person and give them ETERNAL LIFE!
And the greatest news of all, this is a free gift that we can’t earn or deserve. It is something God wanted to offer us because of His great love for us! Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, He came to make dead people ALIVE!!!
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9
This changes WHO you are!
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9
DISCUSSION
- What do you think Jesus meant when He said He came so we might have Life to the fullest?
- What does it mean to be spiritually dead? Spiritually alive?
- Have a couple individuals share when they came ALIVE spiritually?
SKILL WORK
If you have never “Confessed with your mouth Jesus is Lord” and “believed in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead”. Would you make that decision today? If not, what is the biggest thing holding you back from making that decision?
If you have made that decision and you’re a Christ follower, who can you share your story with?
