Which language are you hearing?

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 medical terms, but the language of Latin is not spoken commonly any longer. If we can consider these languages as 'dead', why is it we have such a hard time declaring our sin-language DEAD once and for all? Why is it we pay attention to it, trying to find meaning in it?

Sometimes I think it is because we really don't want to have the old life or way of making choices for our lives 'cut off' once and for all. We want to maintain that contact with those old ways of doing things - those old sins and compromises. We talk a good talk, but we walk a pretty shaky walk! Death separates the old from the new. We'd not stir up a grave, would we? So, why do we stir up sin's talk within? Perhaps it is time we stop 'stirring the pot' and just declare that voice we have been listening to DEAD once and for all!

Alive, Jesus brought God to us. Dead, he took sin and its sin-language to the grave once and for all. That sin-language might try to get us to listen to it, but we are listening to a dead language. It doesn't make sense to us any longer because it is no longer the 'language' we should be listening to - we now listen to the language of grace. Hang onto the words grace speaks and begin to ACTIVELY reject the language sin speaks over and over in your ear. You and I ARE dead to sin and alive to God - grace is our new language.

When I tried to learn Spanish in school, it was hard for me because it wasn't my 'natural tongue'. I have forgotten most of what I learned all because I didn't practice it after I was out of school. When our sin nature was sent to the grave, our 'language' needed to change with it. We are learning a new 'tongue', so to speak. It may not come naturally to us all the time, but the more we practice listening to and using our new 'grace language' and ignore our 'sin-language', the more we will find it comes 'naturally' to us. The 'language' we hear the most often will become the one we respond to the quickest. Just sayin!