JMD Devotional 217 Romans 6:1-7 God is Not Santa Claus

WHAT SHALL we say [to all this]? Are we to remain in sin in order that God's grace (favor and mercy) may multiply and overflow? Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? Are you ignorant of the fact that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by the baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious [power] of the Father, so we too might [habitually] live and behave in newness of life. For if we have become one with Him by sharing a death like His, we shall also be [one with Him in sharing] His resurrection [by a new life lived for God]. We know that our old (unrenewed) self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that [our] body [which is the instrument] of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, that we might no longer be the slaves of sin. For when a man dies, he is freed (loosed, delivered) from [the power of] sin [among men].

If God were Santa Claus, on Christmas Eve children would need to gather up all of their old toys and burn them as an expression of faith that new gifts would emerge Christmas morning. For those who did nothing, or pretended by burying their old toys so they could dig them up later (to hedge their bets or indulge themselves), or ones making a half-hearted effort, they would receive nothing when the sun rose. God’s salvation is a call to righteousness and newness of life: the old toys (sinful ways of life) have to go in faith that new, better gifts will replace them. The Gospel must include both the Cross and the Resurrection, death to self and living for Jesus to be complete. The Cross absolves our chains to futile, sinful living; the Resurrection displays the power with which God will reanimate each of us as POWERFUL children of His, righteous and pure. Receiving the GIFT of eternal life means abandoning the ways of death.

Dear God,
I wish the things that tend to trip me up were tangible like old toys, so they could be simply gathered up and burned; but the root of sin is in my heart. I need You to reach in and work out the poison in my soul; and to impart Yourself into my center of being to establish true vitality and wholeness. Help me to feel the same way about sin as You do; to despise what is dead and unholy. I am the lamp formed of clay, You are the oil and the flame: shine brightly in my life so Your glory may be manifest.
Amen

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