Life in Christ

by Nick Fox

Nothing should thrill our hearts more than the good news that Christ paid our ransom and has forgiven us our sins. What is amazing about Christian College is your interaction with the Word of God. You are immersed in biblical teaching seemingly 24/7. What I aim to do with my writings is to show others what God is teaching me through my devotions, chapel, church, and classes. God has been teaching the same thing in two different classes this semester. In both my Systematic Theology class and my Romans class we have been going through the same passage, Romans 5:12-21. Now from a theological standpoint this is an important passage on how we got our sin nature and even though I believe that is important, that is not where I want to focus today. I actually want to focus on what I think the most focus of the passage really is. We have been given life through the death of Jesus Christ our Lord. Adam’s sin brought death to all, but the good news is that Christ’s act of love conquered death giving us freedom, meaning eternal life. Just like death has come to all men through Adam, life can come to all men through Christ. A passage like this makes me so thankful for the grace that God has given me through Christ.

Now what do we do with this? It’s easy to read a passage like this and say that we can do whatever we want because it is all forgiven. The opposite is actually true. We have been given a higher standard because of Christ. At Northland we switched from demerits to just two rules: Love God and Love Others. At first glance that seems pretty simple right? To be honest, it’s hard. I am expecting to still do all the things I was doing before just now my motivation has changed. The same is true in our Christian walk. We have been forgiven by God and we are commanded to love and serve him. The answer is total dependence on God. We praise the Apostle Paul for his life, but if we were to ask him how he lived such a God-glorifying life he would say that God was the one that enabled him to do this. I’m studying for a sermon on Philippians 3:7-10 and Paul counted all else as nothing for the sake of knowing God. So I encourage you that since we have been granted forgiveness through the cross of Christ, strive to know God. Make it your goal to know more about God daily.