LIFE AND DEATH

 Deuteronomy 30:11, Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you will have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" Not is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live in increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to posses. This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

You have been offered life and death. The heavens and earth can prove that life and death has been set before you. Those who choose life love the LORD their God and listen to his voice and hold fast to him. For HE is life, to choose life is to choose God. To choose death is to hate God and go your own way apart from God who is life. To hate is to separate from. 

It is the power of God unto salvation, the gospel, for in it righteousness is revealed. Righteousness is revealed in the gospel by the power of God. Everyday we are to present ourselves as members of righteousness... not members of sin. You are a product of grace (if you have received grace), presented as members of righteousness. The wage of sin is death, but the gift of life is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. How does one choose death? To choose death is to not choose life. To choose death is to believe you have no redemption from sin. To choose death is to ignore so great a salvation that only comes through Jesus Christ. To choose death is to remain bound by sin, trying to do good works. To choose death is to not believe in the finished works of Jesus as to be saved from death which is the payment you received for the sin of mankind. To be released from this death is to receive the gift of grace which empowers you to walk in true obedience because you now have been made right with God through his Son, Jesus.

I have personally encountered many professing believers who will argue that you are not made right with God through Jesus. I have heard many church goers preach that you will always be a sinner. If you are called to remain a sinner, then why did you even get saved? If you are the same before you got saved as after you supposedly prayed a prayer to get to heaven, then at what point did you deny self, pick up your cross to follow Jesus? At what point were you crucified with him and it is no longer you living but Christ in you? How are you confessing to be in Christ yet your old life is not passed away? My Bible says, "If any man be in Christ, he is a NEW CREATION." Did the power of God save you, release you from your sin and give you a new life? If you are still a sinner after you confess Jesus as your savior, then it is because you don't actually believe your own confession. If you are still a sinner after your confession, then its because you believe you are a sinner and Jesus didn't actually save you. As a man thinks in his heart so is he. If you truly believe that Jesus came to give you life, then I challenge you to actually put on the new life you have received from him. If you are not living in the life Jesus paid for you to have then I would say you have not yet received the gift of salvation. It is not heresy to live the new life Jesus died for you to have. In fact it is double minded to confess salvation but live as though you are still a sinner. Either you are for him or you are against him. Choose this day life or death. Romans 6:2 we are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a NEW LIFE. For if we have been united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin- because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives he lives to God. IN THE SAME WAY, COUNT YOURSELVES DEAD TO SIN BUT ALIVE TO GOD IN CHRIST JESUS. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself as an instrument for wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought rom death to life; and offer every part of yourself as an instrument fo righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master because you are not under the law but under grace. 

verse 18, you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. 

People will read all of Romans 6 and then be like well what about Romans 7? Romans 7 is revealing of both covenants. Which is going back and forth between the law (old covenant) and the knowledge of truth (new covenant). The law (the old covenant) came to show mankind that he was sinful and fell short of the glory of God. The law binds you to death. As long as you live according to the law, the old covenant, it has authority over you. Jesus (the new covenant) came to bring life to mankind. The law brought death. You were sold as a slave to sin. You were in covenant with the accuser until Jesus died. When He died, we died. And like a woman married by law is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if he dies, she is released from the law that bound her to him. When you died with Christ, you were released from the law that binds you to death. Jesus bought you with his own blood. If you are crucified with Christ, you are released from the law and you are no longer a slave to sin. You are alive in Christ Jesus, a slave unto righteousness. If sin was never recognized as sin to bring about your death, you would never have the opportunity to choose. God gave us free will to choose life or death. Until we knew death we could never choose life for ourself. He gave them both to you and said choose this day life or death, blessing or cursing. Heaven and earth are witnesses against you. Life apart from Christ is no life at all. It is simply a common use. His wrath is made known to those who choose death. Destruction is predestined for those who do not accept life in Christ. But out of the same lump of clay can come a special purpose, one that is only predestined in Christ. One thing I know for certain, without death there can be no resurrection. God told us to choose, we chose death. Light came into the world but people loved darkness because their deeds were evil. Everyone who loves evil will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. God told us to choose... we chose death. It is from that death that we have been purchased by the blood of Jesus, if we receive him. Unless of course you don't receive him, then you are still under the law trying to choose life by your own good works apart from Christ. And in that case my friend, that is what makes you a heretic and a blasphemer and an adulterer. Expecting that you can do anything apart from Christ. Jesus is the Resurrection and the life, no one can go to the Father except through him. If you are in him, the old is gone and the new is here. And that is the power of God unto salvation. Not by works that any man can boast. But through the shed blood of Jesus.