ESOCS Devotional 18 June 2022
TEXT: ROMANS 6:1-14
MEMORY VERSE: ““Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Romans 6: 4 KJV
0 And the apostles, when they had returned, told Him all that they had done. Then He took them and went aside privately into a deserted place belonging to the city called Bethsaida. 11 But when the multitudes knew it, they followed Him; and He received them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who had need of healing. 12 When the day began to wear away, the twelve came and said to Him, “Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions; for we are in a deserted lace ”
To walk in newness of life means to live a Resurrected Life. In verse 4, the phrase ‘newness of life’ is actually connected to the idea of Christ’s resurrected body: ‘like as Christ was raised up from the dead . . . we also should walk in newness of life.’ The resurrection of Christ was not the same as the earlier miraculous resurrections of people like Lazarus and the son of the Widow of Nain. In these earlier resurrections, those who came back to life had the same corruptible bodies they had before they died. But the resurrected body of Jesus was new, different, and superior in quality compared to His pre-resurrection body. It was free from all the aches, pains and physical ailments of the former body. It was created for life in heaven, not on earth.
In the same way therefore, our life after salvation should be new, different and superior in quality to our former life. It should be free from all the sinful and corrupt habits of the former life. It lives for heavenly things and not for earthly things any more. This is what we mean by the Resurrected life. 2 Corinthians 5: 17 says, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.”
Dearly beloved, is your life different now from what it was before you were saved? Do you still love the things that you loved before? If you are walking in newness of life, your values in life will be different. You will be more concerned with the things of God than the things of the world, and with things that are eternal, rather than with things that are temporal; and with things that are above, rather than with things that are on the earth.
Newness of life means living a Resurrected, revived and righteous life. And this is the life we must all endeavour to live, since we have become identified with Jesus Christ in His death, in His burial and in His Resurrection. May the Lord help us.
- Compare your lifestyle now with the one you had before you encountered Jesus. Is there a difference positively?
- Lord, help me to be transformed by the renewal of my mind.
Read Other ESOCS Devotional here
FURTHER READING: Numbers 22:36-23:12; Deuteronomy 28:1–14; Mark 4:1–20
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ESOCS Devotional 18 June 2022
