Bad News, Good News

The Scriptures that follow tell us in no uncertain terms that before God we have two basic choices that take us down very different paths. The first choice is death and the second is life. Each choice pays out dividends and is a long term investment or a pension as one source puts it (refer below).

Our default choice is death. We were born in sin and separation from God. We were already condemned before birth. This seams unfair and unjust and it is.

The unjust thing is that our distant great parents chose death and turned away from God and rebelled, when tempted by the enemy of humanity. That banishment from the Garden of God, was the outcome of the choice of mankind which set the trajectory to where we are today. Living in sin, brokenness, pain and more rebellion...

This is the Bad News!

What is the Good news?

The Good News is that out of mercy and love God chose to save and redeem us - that's you. He redeems us from the curse of the past choices of Adam and Eve plus the devastating consequences of that sin and it's cumulative affects of death - spiritual death, psychological death and physical death.

Jesus came to teach us God's ways, suffer, die and be raised again to liberate us from death and the fear of death. Jesus died and was raised to life to give us certainty that He was who He said who He was.

The resurrection of Jesus and baptism of the Holy Spirit empowers us to live a new life and conquer sin in our corrupt nature.

"Whoever is a believer in Christ is a new creation. The old way of living has disappeared. A new way of living has come into existence." 2 Corinthians 5:17

As a result of this new life, Paul teaches the Galatian church about the new "spiritual nature" and the old "corrupt nature". Read Galatians 5: 13-26.

Here is the key verse for me: "Live your life as your spiritual nature directs you. Then you will never follow through on what your lower nature wants." Galatians 5:16

Yes, until Jesus comes or we pass on to another life, we will have this inner struggle between the new spiritual nature and the old corrupt nature.

The choice will always remain. So in the light of what Christ did for us - and the Father and the Spirit - let's choose LIFE every day!

Here's the other related Scriptures to read and contemplate:
"If you serve sin as your master, it will pay you with death. But if you belong to our Lord Jesus Christ, God gives you a gift! That gift is life with God for ever." Romans 6:23 EASY

"But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master." Romans 6:22-23 MSG

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23 (NIV)
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