Last week, we returned to talking about two of my favorite verses: Ephesians 2:4-5. We’ve seen these verses speak into our hopeless spiritual condition with a big “But God.” We’ve considered the riches of God’s mercy and how He loved us with a great love before we loved Him. Today we’ll see what God intervened to do because of His mercy and love.
In the beginning of Ephesians 2, Paul described us as dead in our sin. Dead people can’t be helped by a life raft, a dose of medicine, an encouraging word, or a great example of how to be alive. The only hope for someone who’s spiritually dead is a miracle in which God brings them from death to life. And praise God! – that’s exactly what He’s done for us in Christ:
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4–5)
The new life we have in Christ is a gift of God’s grace. We couldn’t earn this new life, and we don’t deserve it. But “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He accomplished all that is needed for us to receive the gift of life.
The new life we have in Christ is rooted in His resurrection. The night before His crucifixion, Jesus told His disciples: “Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). Because He lives and we are in Him, we also live.
The new life we have in Christ will never end. Because of our new life in Christ, we don’t have to fear death. As Jesus and His friend Martha stood outside the tomb of her brother Lazarus, Jesus told her: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).
In a world plagued by disease, violence, and death, we have this living hope: even when we were dead in our sins, God made us alive together with Christ.
No matter what you face this week, you’ve been made alive with Christ.
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