The Old Adam Lives!

Do you look good on wood?

If you’re going to have anything to do with Jesus the Christ, you will find out.

Every single person in this world is going to go to the cross…either in this life, or the next.

For followers of Jesus it is the same story.  Jesus told us that we also will have to take up our cross. He told us that we will have trouble in the world. He told us that we will be hated on account of Him.

The life in Christ is a paradox. When Paul wrote of his beatings and jailings and mockings for the sake of Christ, he called them blessings.

Some Christians have things much worse (or better?) than others. Some Christian’s lives are literally at stake each and every day in countries where Christians are viewed as a disease to be wiped out.

The day is evil. Our own flesh is evil. The devil is evil…and is after us.

There is a spiritual battle raging. The world, the flesh, and the devil are at odds with our Lord Jesus and wish to steal us from Him.

But Jesus is the conqueror. He has won the war for us. “It is finished.”

But until the New Creation is brought into being by our Lord, we will “have to suffer for a little while.”

As followers of Christ, we will go to the cross in this life…but not in the next.

We live in our baptisms. We experience many deaths, and many resurrections as we are carried along in this life by our baptisms. Dying…and rising. Repentance and forgiveness. Over and over, and over again…until we are laid down for the last time and put into the ground.

But that is not the last word. Our Lord has the last word and indeed is the last Word! He is the First and the Last. The Alpha and Omega. All things are subject to Him, and He has defeated the last enemy, death, on the cross and in His resurrection.

So while we suffer in this life, to varrying degrees, we have the assurance that when we are raised with Him on that last Day…there will be no more suffering, no more tears. We will spend an eternity in peace and joy and unimaginable bliss in our Father’s House. 

 He is our sure Hope.

Filed under: Assurance, Baptism, Theology of the Cross |