Monday Morning Musings ...

Yesterday was a mixture of good and not so good. The weather was terrible, rainy and the temperature dropped into the low 40's, it is the middle of May already. I was missing my wife who is taking care of grandchildren for a few days. My son and daughter in law got to see their son for the first time yesterday. They have their court date for the adoption tomorrow. Their first visit with him went well, I can't wait to meet him. We had a good attendance even though we were missing several mostly regular attenders. Their were a few who came to the altar in response to the message. Our small group was the lowest attendance we have ever had, but we had a great time talking and sharing. So you can see, it was a good and not so good day.

I continued the theme we began on Easter of "It's Not Over". We looked at Romans 7:1-6. There is a statue of Christopher Columbus in Spain. One of the unique features of the statue is a lion destroying one of the Latin words that had been part of Spain's motto for centuries. The motto had been "Ne Plus Ultra", which means "No More Beyond" because they thought they had reached the ends of the earth. The Lion is tearing away the word "Ne" or "No" so that it then read "...More Beyond". That holds true for our walk with Christ, there is more beyond wherever we are today.

In taking the next steps to go beyond where we are we need to die to sin. Die to it's habits and rules. These will hold you hostage when you don't choose to die to them. Death releases you from all of this, that is only logical but so often live as if still tied to it. We die to our self and sin so that we can belong to another, Jesus Christ. You cannot belong to another (Christ) while you are still living with someone else. Too often we try to embrace Christ and all that he has for us without letting go of our sin and our past. We try to live a new life without dying to the old life. In this death we find freedom, freedom truly comes in the release from sin. This then allows us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. There is no room for the Holy Spirit in a life that is filled with sin and self. This death to sin and self allows us to live as Christ. If we have chosen to follow Christ that means we have chosen to live like him. That means we must die to living life our way. Is your living modeled after Christ? This must be more than joining the club. In joining a club we usually only live for the club when the club meets, not all of the time. In following Christ we must live for him all the time, it must become who we are, not what we join.

To whom do you belong? What are you embracing? Are you trying to hold onto something in addition to Christ?