What makes the journey of a Disciple of Christ successful is when they learn to transition from focusing on having a good quality of life to having a good quality of death.

I just returned from an amazing Conference in Weston, Florida, called “Flourish Your Faith”. It is an ecumenical conference and I had the pleasure of listening to Matt Lazano, of The Father’s Heart Ministries, present material on a new book he is writing. The content of the book is on holiness and it was amazing. The clarity which the Holy Spirit has given Matt on the pursuit of holiness is illuminating.

The basic premise of his clarity on this topic is simply that holiness is not something we are supposed to achieve, but something that we are supposed to let God live out in us. How? By actually living out what Christ has already accomplished in us. As he unpacked scripture after scripture, I could see it – it was right there.

I found myself reflecting during the two-and-a-half-hour flight back from Miami. The Lord brought me back to one of the passages that Matt had been unpacking. It was Roman’s 6. In particular, I zeroed in on the tenses of the actions that Paul was describing. As I examined these passages closely, I began to see what Christ had already accomplished with His death and resurrection. I just needed to live that out as my new truth.

One example of this in Roman’s Chapter 6 is in verses 6 and 7, when he is speaking of our baptism:

“We know that our old self WAS crucified with him so that the body of sin MIGHT BE destroyed, and we MIGHT NO LONGER be enslaved to sin. For whoever

HAS DIED is FREED from sin.”

During the conference, I was struggling with this teaching because its application was so different from what we grew up learning and striving for. Victory over sin and death has been accomplished in Jesus, we just have to live it. But why is that so hard? Then it hit me like a freight train.

I had spent all my life growing up in our western culture, striving according to the values of the world. Our goal is the get the best the world has to offer. We grow up focusing on the quality of our living – we go to school, get jobs, strive for more money that gets us newer and better things.

Then we encounter Jesus and He speaks to our hearts and touches something in use that all our current pursuits can’t fulfill. So, we decide to give our lives to Him through the union of Baptism. Rather than actually living our lives according to what the Word says, which means we are dead and therefore don’t need to strive for a higher quality of living, we now try to get the best of both worlds. So, we strive for Holiness on our terms and through our efforts rather than accepting the work only God can do in us. The truth is we can’t make ourselves Holy, God does! In fact, He already has done the work we needed to be free. We are simply not trusting, and therefore, choosing not to live the way we have been called.

I realize that instead of trying to focus on the quality of my living, I needed to begin to focus on the quality of my DYING in Christ. My normal approach to life has been how do I get better things out of this world. Now my attention should be firmly fixed on the meaning of my death and its application in my living. St. Paul also adds:

There is not sufficient space here to really unpack these thoughts properly. I will follow this up with the next blog. What I can share for now is that this simple thought can be used to help you begin to wrestle with these ideas. In Baptism we don’t physically die, we make a decision to live our lives ONLY for God and according to His teachings. These days, that is a very radical thought and foreign lifestyle. Look at Jesus’ example.

“The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Rom. 6:10-11

This is an entire paradigm shift from living for myself and family and the attempt to avoid sinning as I strive to follow Christ, to allowing Christ to sanctify me as I present my life as forfeit to (and for) Jesus so that He can help me live out the holiness He has already accomplished in me.

What does this mean practically? I need not worry about the stuff of this world because I too have died with Christ. I am now literally learning how to live IN Christ with all the provision that He has for me. Here is where the Holy Spirit will guide each of us as we ask Him the “how do we do this” question. We must trust the Spirit to show us how to live this out because it is God’s will that we do this. He will always provide when He calls.

Thanks Be To God.

Look for the next blog entitled “Practical Applications For Living Our Baptism”