Ah, the Dead Life!

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus - Romans 6:11

So, yesterday morning I awoke and lay there in bed. It was 5:47AM (ah, the digital clock). As I did a thought struck me. I closed my eyes and folded my hands over my chest to form a sort of "X".

I lay still - as if I were dead.

Why do such a thing?

Let me ask a question, what life experiences, what thoughts, what aspirations, what are the elements of your life that raise your blood pressure most quickly to its highest levels? My challenges with obnoxious drivers (defined as anyone who does not drive as I wish them to) are legendary. For you it might be those times you feel wrongfully accused. In our current economic condition perhaps it is that you are out of work or, as a result are watching the little savings you had dwindle to nothing.

At what point do the injustices being done to us become sin within us?

A friend of mine, Os Hillman would suggest it is when we move past the emotion and into attitudes of anger toward God. This is a form of faithlessness. Our faithlessness says that circumstances of life dictate anxiety, worry, fear, or anger and we justify and feed those thoughts and exacerbate those feelings until we believe God's inability in us to overcome.

Do you have situational faith? Are you full of faith when life is smooth?

So, I lay there. As I did I though through Romans 6:11. Just what are the attributes of a dead man? How does he handle life's assignments? Is there anger when whispers come up about him or his actions? Nope. What are his thoughts about the future as he looks at his current resources? Nope, no comparative thinking moves him at all. As a matter of fact he has no care or concern whatsoever about what can happen in the physical (emotional, mental, metaphysical, etc. etc.) at all!

Why? Er...well, he's DEAD!. Nothing can harm a dead man.

Paul wrote that we're to live as if we're dead - dead to the temptation of responding to stimuli in our life that are designed to stir up the sinful nature that resides in each of us. We associate ourselves with our Savior. His death meant that the world was simply no longer a nuisance. In the same way, we are to view our existence as not coming from the daily cares. The world, our job, the family and our relationships are not the wellspring of life - Jesus Christ Himself is!

Jesus is sufficient. As our "all in all" He will move us and provide for us and it is in Him we have our identity. If we are moved by current trends or our own weakness, then Christ is not our all in all. Today, I purpose to give Him just that much more of me and I include that part both He and I know I sweat over...

"All to thee my blessed Savior - I surrender all!" (and remain)

InHISgrip,
~J~