Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. (Romans 12:3 NLT) Let's be truthful today - do we really make an honest evaluation of ourselves, or is it tainted by some misguided standard or lofty goal we have set for ourselves? If we were to be totally honest, most of us have set the bar either way too high or settled for it being way too low in a spiritual sense. We have become content in our 'lukewarm' state of being "Christians" but not living like Christ is our all in all, or we have become so down on ourselves because we think we haven't 'attained' the 'level' of Christian faith we think God must expect of us. Either way, we aren't right! God accepts us as we are, not as we will become. He wants us to have him as the center of our lives, with our whole hearts devoted to him. We are not going to grow in Christ when we simply bide our time ...
Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer captive to sin’s demands! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. (Romans 6:6-11 MSG) Sin speaks a dead language - that caught my eye this morning in my reading time. There are a lot of other 'dead languages' around, aren't there? Latin, Ancient Greek, and Sanskrit are just a few. Oh sure, there are Latin roots to some of our medi...