From me to you Part 6: choose life

CONTEXT: Paul was a Jew. He didn’t stop being a Jew when he discovered new life in Jesus. His new understanding of how to live in relationship with God was not a new religion: it was an extension and evolution of his existing Jewish faith. There was a continuity of faith and understanding. The story was not just beginning with Jesus: it started way back at the beginning of time with the one true God.

Many of the new believers come from this Jewish tradition too. Paul is joining up the dots here, demonstrating the link between the one man who brought death to all, Adam, and the one man who brought life to all, Jesus.

Paul uses an example from everyday life in Rome that everyone will understand to illustrate what he’s saying. He talks about slaves because everyone understood the role of the slave. The slave was not a free person. The slave was owned by the master. The slave was no more than a possession. The slave was expected to obey the master in all things.

EXCERPT: Romans 5:12-6:23

FROM ME TO YOU:

The Christian faith can seem pretty complicated at times, but here’s a really simple way of looking at things.

Take the first man, Adam. He turned away from God to do things his own way. He didn’t want to play by God’s rules. He thought he knew better. And that led to a break in relationship with God, a break in the trust and obedience that we as human beings were created to live in. It ultimately led to death, separation from God.

And then came Jesus, who changed all that. He opened up a new way, a way back to God. People had been trying to get back in relationship with God by following God’s rules, the Law, but that was never enough. Only Jesus through his death and resurrection could reconcile us to God. God has an abundant provision of grace to pour out on us all. His grace is more than enough. 

That doesn’t mean that we should be deliberately doing more and more wrong things so that we can access more and more of God’s grace. That’s not how it works. It’s time to put the old life behind us and to choose life. That old life died when we chose to follow Jesus and the live in the power of his resurrection. Now we can live a new life, the life that God always intended for us to live. We are no longer slaves to our unhelpful desires and wrong choices. We can choose to commit ourselves instead to life in all its fullness, for it is in doing life God’s way that we will enter into fullness of life and love and light. 

Choose life.

Yours,

Hx