Our old nature is crucified together with Christ

God has freed us from the slavery of the body and the law through the Work of Christ Jesus on the cross of Calvary, we are free, we now have to live that life of justice and holiness.

And how we do it? bringing our life to the Lord and notice that Paul says something also interesting here, he says: "In a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God" he now elaborates a little more on this idea of presenting the body, how should we present our body to the Lord? well, I see here it says "present our bodies as a living sacrifice" as a living sacrifice.

You see what I previously clarified that presenting means how to bring a sacrifice as the priests brought the sacrifice, they presented it before the Lord and then burned it to be consumed before the Presence of God and that that ardor, that meat that It represented how death and the consumption of the carnal, the animal, the earthly, the diabolical in front of the Presence of the Lord and God, then when seeing this meat burn it was like: ok My anger is satisfied, My justice is satisfied, I have said that the wages of sin is death that when man sins he will die as I told Adam and Eve.

Now this animal that represents the sinner to be consumed and destroyed represents as the satisfaction of My justice. Well then Paul is saying that this is how we have to present our bodies, our flesh, our human nature as a living sacrifice. Again this idea is interesting that the Bible works over and over again associating the death of a part of our being, the earthly and carnal part with sanctification and the resurrection to a different new life.

The apostle Paul says for example in Romans 6: 6: "Knowing this: that our old man" see? old man is a key term used by the apostle Paul referring to the old nature: sin, the body, the flesh, the earthly, animal and carnal part of the human being "knowing that our old man was crucified together with Him so that the body of sin is destroyed so that we no longer serve sin. "

This is a deeper elaboration of the same thing that the apostle Paul says in code and very compact when he says that we present our bodies as a living sacrifice as a sacrifice. How was Christ presented through the cross of Calvary? it says like a lamb without blemish, like a sacrifice right? Christ was the last sacrifice, the highest type of sacrifice that God could receive; the perfect being that He was was crucified, he was slain as a holy lamb without blemish before the Lord, he was presented to himself, wasn't he? In front of God.

And know? What Paul is saying here is that we too have to go through a type of sacrifice, we too have to be crucified. It says that our old man was crucified together with Him. In other words, our old nature when we surrender to the Lord is like God considers it crucified together with Christ and God already sees it that way.

Now in daily life we have to make that absolute spiritual act something that is repeated day by day, we have to make it something current. What God has done in a judicial legal form now in our daily life we do it one thing, a real, continuous, gradual fact that is consummated and is being perfected and is being carried out day by day.

"Our old man was crucified with Him" as a sacrifice, right? Remember? let us present our body as a living sacrifice so that the body of sin says Romans 6 is destroyed so that we no longer serve sin because the one who has died has been justified from sin.

It's a wonderful idea isn't it? God is continually dealing with that with us. This idea that we die to live, that a part of us dies, the old nature is dying day after day so that we may rise to a new life in Christ Jesus, chapter 6 of Romans verse 4: "Because we are buried together with Him for death through baptism, so that as Christ rose from the dead for the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in a new life. "

How interesting: there is a connection between death to sin and new life to the justice and holiness of God and that the way that happens is us presenting ourselves as a sacrifice and dying more and more every day so that the life of Christ is manifested more and more in us.

Incidentally, it is interesting that this is the symbolism of baptism. When you are baptized you are making precisely a graphic and symbolic expression of what has already been given in your life and what you will be giving throughout your life as well.

When the new believer enters the waters of baptism and the Pastor or the person who is officiating takes his body and immerses it in the water and the person who is being baptized for a moment disappears into the water that moment represents the death of the new believer ; it represents his death to the world, to the flesh, to sin, to serve sinfulness and injustice and then when it rises back to the surface in an instant it represents the new life of holiness to which that believer is being called.

It is the deep meaning of baptism, it is the meaning of dying, dying to the flesh to live in holiness. Again, chapter 6 Romans says: "What then shall we say, shall we persevere in sin so that Grace may abound? In no way because those of us who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?

Then Paul clarifies: "Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death because we have been buried together with Him to death through baptism so that as Christ rose from the dead for Glory? of the Father even if we also walk in a new life? "

In other words Paul says: present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wonderful again the symbolism, the depth of the Word of the Lord. What we have to do each day in our life in our search for holiness is to present the elements of our being to the Lord as a living sacrifice.

There is the thing. We do not take a knife and cut our veins or literally kill ourselves, but what we do in a sense is that every day the believer must be dying a little bit, he must be presenting himself before the Lord as a living sacrifice; of course every day we are alive but every day we are dying a little more to the flesh.

The Christian life is a gradual death, a gradual death of all the bad, harmful, destructive things in us. No person can be a good Christian if he is not dying a little bit every day, how interesting but in that way he can also become a truly living and truly powerful creature with God.

Present your life to Christ as a sacrifice, die a little more each day and then you can live the purpose that God has for your life. May God bless you, I say goodbye to you and until our next meditation, a pleasure to be with you. God bless you.