Smarties

This week I was handed a pack of Smarties, and I believe everything I said was almost identical to what I used when I was handed a sucker.

Smarties are made of sugar, and probably not much else. If we eat nothing but Smarties for a while we would enjoy it, everyone I know loves sweet things. But the consequences of this diet wouldn't be good. Your teeth would rot from all the sugar, you'd gain a ton of weight, and your health would be in decline.

Sin works that way in our lives. At first it seems great, but really it's just destructive. It ruins our lives and relationships.

This next part I have to be sure I explain right. There is a cure for eating Smarties, in 2012 we have tooth paste and tooth brushes. By brushing our teeth we are able to clean and save our teeth from the destructive sugar. Jesus is there to cleanse our lives of sin.

Now this might sound like its ok to sin so long as we just ask Jesus for forgiveness, after all it’s ok to have a pack of Smarties as long as we brush our teeth. But life isn't that way. God gives grace freely to those who ask. Those who repent of sin are cleansed and set free from sin. But with grace and forgiveness comes the expectation of change. Jesus says in John 8.11, "Go. From now on sin no more." Paul says in Romans 6.1-2, "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?"

When God frees us from sin through the blood of Christ we are free as it says in John 8.36. With forgiveness and freedom, we die to sin and are raised to new life in Christ. Salvation is not the end, but the beginning of a journey that leads us to Christlikeness. Grace is not to be taken lightly.

Romans 6.3-11, "Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus."

We are dead to sin, and alive to God. Let our lives be saved and transformed into Christlikeness by His grace.

Peace be with you