Together - Daily DevotionalSample

Life and Death

Reading: Galatians 2:19-20

Key Verse: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” v.20

When Jesus spoke of a seed falling into the ground and producing a harvest (John 12:24-25) He observed that for new life to exist and flourish, something often has to “die”. Genesis 2:24 explains that when someone marries, they “leave” their parents to form a new union with their spouse. One union “dies” or changes in order that the new union of marriage may flourish. I used to be my daughter’s “next of kin” but that relationship no longer exists now she is married and her husband has assumed that role.

Christianity is not just about Christ dying for us but that in a sense we died in Him. We were crucified with Him into a death of our old way of life that we might be raised with Him in His resurrection to a new way of life. The Apostle Paul explains this is the effect of baptism when by faith we reckon our old way of life “buried” so that we may live a new life in union with Jesus (Rom.6:1-14, Col.2:12). The caterpillar “dies” that the butterfly may emerge.  Some Christians try to keep the old life and so never really experience the new. But the sinner must “die” so the “saint” may appear. 

Prayer: Jesus I choose to accept your death as my own that I may embrace Your new resurrection life