Thoughts for another day

March 7, 2013.

Today's verse: Rom. 8:10. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. (NIV – copyright ack.)

(Pls. read the above before you read further.  Thanks)

On the face of it, when we read the above Scripture, it seems quite simple and easy to comprehend, but a closer look and we realise there’s a great deal of mystery in the statement, for how can I grasp: ‘if Christ is in me, then my body is dead’; besides, though Christ is in me right now, my body isn’t dead as I’m able to walk and work, being pretty much alive; also that I write this reflection and you, though you have Christ are yet alive and are reading this and well, trying to comprehend.  But then, as I go forward in my thinking, there’s a great truth that hits me for I realise that when Paul says my body is dead, he actually means ‘the desires of the body.’

Now the desire of the body is largely carnal.  That is my situation without Christ, helpless and prone to fall.  But, with my conscious acceptance of Christ, His Spirit comes to dwell in me and the situation then is what I call…Spiritual.  We know that the desires of the flesh are against the desires of the Spirit and vice-versa; but in the Spiritual new self, His Spirit works in me to attain to or appropriate the desires that reflect my craving for things of heaven and thus I’m subsequently able to express both thoughts and affinities toward things of God, for deep within, the idea of living in accord with God’s will becomes real and my mind strives actively to live His way, shedding the carnal path.

By the coming of the Holy Spirit, which is given us as the further work of God, after He puts on us His seal of ownership (this of course happens as we open up to His invitation to accept His Son as our Redeemer and believe that He died for us) our spirits are quickened and become alive in the heavenlies, as the righteousness of Christ becomes ours by transfer because of the Holy work of God and achieved by the shedding of the blood of His Son.  Then on we’re one with Christ and in and through Him alone, we’re one with the Father – alive and well, even through eternal life.