This teaching has incredible ramifications for us who believe. Just think of it: you are not the same person you once were! The person that was dominated by sexual impurity is now dead in a grave. His/her passions lay dead with Jesus. His/her lusts lay lifeless in the tomb. His/her cravings have no breath in them. They are all dead and buried!
My friend, see your old self like that! See the past you, the one that turned to impurity when tired or bored, that went to that illicit relationship when you felt hopelessness and despair, see it dead in Joseph’s tomb with Jesus. See your old passions as having no life in them. See your old person as “flat lining,” dead with Jesus!
And now you have been raised with Jesus to a new life. Your new person loves Jesus Christ, loves holiness, loves righteousness, and purity. This new person has new passions and new “longings.” Like a newborn baby, he/she “craves pure spiritual milk of the Word” (1 Peter 2:2 NIV). That word “craves” is “epithumea,” which is the same word that is translated in other places as “yearn for, desires, to long for, pursue with love.” Oh, what a change happens! We begin to “yearn, desire, long for, pursue with love” the Lord Jesus, the Living Word who died for us.
Colossians 2:12 ESV having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
It is through “faith in the powerful working of God, Who raised Christ from the dead” that we are also raised to new life and can live a new way.
And so, I ask you: do you believe? Have you put your faith in the cross of Christ? Do you honestly believe He died for you? Do you believe in the powerful working of God in raising Jesus from the dead?
This faith is how we access God’s power to change. Faith is the “jumper cables” that connect the power source of God to the lifeless sinner. Faith is that which makes us partakers of His death, burial, and resurrection. Faith, as given by God, applies the gospel to our hearts and lives, thereby releasing us from captivity to sin and giving us a new life.
Oh friend, as you kneel at the foot of the cross and look up into your Savior’s blood-stained face, put faith in Him, and receive God’s power! As you see the love in His eyes for you and believe the good news, you are connected to Him by faith that both saves and sanctifies. If you’ve looked up to Him once and are saved, keep looking up to Him more and be changed. Keep believing, keep putting faith in the cross of Christ, and the changes will come. “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Question 6. According to 2 Corinthians 3:18, how do you experience transformation?
Today, we have seen that Jesus died, was buried and rose again, and we receive the benefit of all of this. In tomorrow’s lesson, I want to share an amazing illustration that will bring this truth home to our hearts and imprint it on our minds.
Question 7. What did you learn or what were you reminded of in this lesson?
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