September 28, 2022
Daily Devotion:
“One Way or the Other “
Galatians 2:20
New International Version
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Prisoners awaiting execution on death row are said to be “dead men walking." They might possibly have their lives spared by reversed convictions order pardons, but in the meantime, they are as good as dead. Ironic, isn't it, that disciples of Jesus are also "dead men walking," though in a different sense altogether. We are not awaiting death, but are already dead. To identify with Christ in name is to identify with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, as pictured most vividly in Christian baptism. Having died to self, we are buried in the watery grave and are raised to walk a new life! But metaphors without an underlying reality are merely nice pictures. How many of us can honestly say that we have been “crucified with Christ"? (Nail prints, anyone?) How many of us have gone down into the watery grave without ever fully dying to self? We Would think it unimaginably cruel to be buried alive, but countless believers have” been dunked" without experiencing the death that such a burial assumes. So what is that but being buried alive? How spiritually suffocating it must be! One way or the other, everybody has to die twice. Unless the Lord returns in our lifetime, everyone is going to die physically. But there is that "second death" to think about, the destruction of the soul that Jesus spoke of and That John mentions in his Revelation. The “second death" in the eternal realm is for those who have not already died to Christ in this life. So the choice is ours. How do we want to experience our “second death," crucified with Christ or condemned by Christ?
The excruciating question is: Am I a dead person walking with Christ, or a pretend Christian who has yet to truly die?
