Afterwords -- alive to God
"Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:8-11)
May 26, 2023
Dear friends,
For most people, Memorial Day weekend is considered the official start of summer. Pools open, grills are fired up, and people head to the beach. However, the purpose of the memorial observance is to remind us of those whose lives ended so that we might go on living in a free land.
This morning I watched a short documentary about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. This line caught my attention: "The unknown soldiers serve to remind us that not all actions of valor are witnessed and recorded in war. We do not know the stories of these men but we know they gave their lives in a war they did not start, to protect the freedom of people who would never know their name." To protect us, people who would never know their name.
The death of our Savior also took place in order to give us life -- eternal life. And thankfully, we know his name. We remember his death, in which he defeated Satan and removed from us the burden and guilt of sin. But we who are Christians should always keep in mind that not only did Jesus die for our sins, but that we, in union with Christ, have died with him. And so we have been removed from the dominion of sin. This death to sin -- and reckoning ourselves to be dead to sin -- is not the ultimate goal, but rather, that we might be able to live freely for God. His death gives us freedom to live for God.
Francis Schaeffer, commenting on Romans 6:10, writes,
Jesus died once for all, but now He continues to live "unto God." He died, not just to die, but to be alive to God. Likewise, our calling as Christians is never primarily a negative thing. The basic Christian call is a positive thing. The first commandment, said Jesus, is to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind" (Matt. 22:37). The word "don't" does not appear in this commandment. It is true that loving God means there are certain things we will want to avoid doing. These are, for instance, spelled out for us in the Ten Commandments.
But our primary calling as Christians is a positive thing. So often Christians act as though the Christian calling is merely to have sort of an unhappy life and say no to this and no to that. But that isn't the point. There are certain negative things that are involved, which cause pain, but the calling is primarily a positive one. The calling is to be alive to God. The negative commands relate to things that hinder you from being alive to God. "He liveth unto God." And the only way to be alive to God is to be dead toward something else.
Read more of this quote here.
MISCELLANEOUS
-- "Comic book movies are the new American mythology, and the characters in these comic book movies are often just hard-bodied, fast-talking teenagers: the kind of people who, in the words of the most influential man of the 21st century, 'move fast and break things.'” (Samuel James) Read "Does Maturity Still Matter?"
-- Reflecting on Eisenhower: "...democracy is not a matter of institutions and procedures alone. It takes a critical mass of citizens, living by certain virtues and the convictions that undergird them, to make a democracy work so that the result is individual human flourishing and social solidarity." (George Weigel) Read "Ike's Insight" here.
-- Sometimes I am asked what are the classic Christian works that every believer should read and be familiar with. Excluding fiction and poetry, here are twenty of the best Christian classics, in my opinion.
-- Also, on the topic of books, there are some that truly should be banned, especially at schools and public libraries, like these.
-- And here is VT alum Brian Goulet explaining the mystique of fountain pens.
FINAL QUOTES, mainly about reading:
"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read at all." (Mark Twain)
"The things you read will fashion you by slowly conditioning your mind." (A. W. Tozer)
"I read for eternity." (John C. Ryland)
That's it for this week!
Sandy
Image credit: photo above is of the Omaha Beach cemetery at Normandy, from Wikipedia. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.