When I feel the weariness of life and my failures, my eyes are on myself – apart from my union with Jesus. Instead, Paul would have me fix my eyes on Jesus and remember that I’m united with him until I believe it deep in my soul again. You see, we are not merely finite people afflicted with sin and suffering anymore. Indeed, we are still finite. We are still afflicted. But, now we’re also united with Christ.
I’ve felt the weariness of life lately. I feel my weakness as a husband, a daddy, and a pastor. I feel my limitations as a finite man and especially of the sin that still clings far too closely. In seasons like this one I find myself tempted to passivity in my life. The battle never stops and it seems like I’m often losing, so why keep trying?
Then, this morning my eyes read the words of Romans 6:9-12:
We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So, you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
If you read earlier in the chapter you see Paul making a case that we’ve been baptized into Christ – united with him – buried with him in his death to sin and therefore raised with him to walk in the freedom of newness of life. (6:1-8).
The foundational reality of our ongoing lives as Christians resides in the death and resurrection of Christ and our union with him in it.
