The Resurrecting Grace of Jesus: "Becoming Human"
Romans 8:11 “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.”
Paul is spending some time talking about the actions of God through Jesus Christ and how Jesus is God’s answer to our human condition of sin. Paul uses the image of the Cross and resurrection to describe the Christian life. In this verse Paul explains that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and brought Him back to life is the same power that lives in us through the Spirit. It is this resurrecting power that brings life to our mortal bodies by this Spirit living in us and through this Spirit we get to experience true, everlasting life.
I find it fascinating to think that I was not really alive (in the way God intended humans to be alive) until I was freed from the penalty of my sin through Jesus Christ and brought back into relationship with God. It is through the Holy Spirit living in me that this relationship takes place and the Spirit is the source of my renewed life from which I am able to be alive. It is as if in Jesus Christ, God called me from the grave and resurrected my life through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is in this resurrected life that I begin to experience what it means to be a human being and perhaps in the passing from this world to God’s eternal kingdom through this same Spirit I finally become the creation God designed me to be from the beginning as I am delivered from the very presence of sin. In the meantime, the Spirit continues the work of resurrecting grace that empowers me to become more and more human each day as I grow closer to God through this grace.
Lord Jesus, thank you for this resurrecting grace. Thank you for including me in the promise and inviting me into the promise of resurrection. I pray today that through your grace I might grow closer into your vision for a human being. May I be more human today then yesterday; may I be more natural today then I was yesterday. May you bring me closer to the place where I will finally be delivered from the very presence of sin and made whole in your Kingdom. Thank you for this promise, may it be the driving force of my life today and the source of all my interaction. Protect me from the sin that continues to infect my life; may your resurrecting grace be a more powerful presence in my life today then my disease of sin. Amen!!!
Through Jesus Christ I am given the grace to become a human being the way God designed humans to be.
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