“Sharing in his death by our baptism means that we were co-buried with him, so that when the Father’s glory raised Christ from the dead, we were also raised with him. We have been co-resurrected with him so that we could be empowered to walk in the freshness of new life. For since we are permanently grafted into him to experience a death like his, then we are permanently grafted into him to experience a resurrection like his and the new life that it imparts.”
God’s grace is not a transaction. It comes into our life through our union with Christ.
God’s grace will always outstrip our sin. However the more Christ reveals Himself to us the less we dispose ourselves to sin.
God does everything to save us. It is collaborative. It is both Divine sovereignty and our responsibility.
It is an intimacy fuelled by God’s grace . Invincibly United in Christ we cannot become disunited because He has been resurrected and is in heaven.
The complexity of our being is layered like rings of an onion around a central core of Christ within us. We are secure in Christ before we had even heard of Christ.
Knowing us stimulates us to being more activated and we move from glory to glory. Transformed from the destiny of Adam to the destiny of Christ.
Being in Christ we discover our true identity, who we were created to be. Not, as Richard Rhor would put it, our false self.
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
Nothing can touch us that does not touch Christ. He feels our anguish and pain. He can mediate that which we may need to run away from. He envelops us and defines our existence.
“In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
Whatever life exhibits, even the atrocities of war we have a security in the simplicity of this union being beyond everything else.
It prevents us being deceived or alarmed in the wisdom that this life is but short compared to an eternity in His presence.
Wisely C.S.Lewis is quoted to have said that the first point of action in a war is to pull ourselves together.
God puts within us that which stabilises us. Keeps us ordered, held in His grip. An opportunity to experience our unity with Him. He always gives hope.
The illustration shows the Holy Spirit of our baptism shared in the death of Christ on the cross to be co-resurrected with Him. He in our core and we within His. Light emanating to push back the darkness.
Three Scriptures that come to mind:
“Sharing in his death by our baptism means that we were co-buried with him, so that when the Father’s glory raised Christ from the dead, we were also raised with him. We have been co-resurrected with him so that we could be empowered to walk in the freshness of new life. For since we are permanently grafted into him to experience a death like his, then we are permanently grafted into him to experience a resurrection like his and the new life that it imparts.” Romans 6:4-5 TPT
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV
“In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” John 14:20 ESV
The song Freedom. Hillsong
Lessisgreater 