Living Among the
Dead
Romans 8:10-11
American Standard Version
10 And if Christ is
in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of
righteousness.
11 But if the
Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that
raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies
through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
In an article about the Philippines, there
was mention of the over-population problem.
In Manila, the capitol, there are an estimated twelve million people
living in an area of 14.88 square miles.
By comparison, the population of Ohio is only 11.54 million in an area
of 44,825 square miles. So picture
everybody in Ohio visiting Columbus on the same day.
Manila also faces severe poverty for an
overwhelming majority of this population.
They live anywhere there is room to build a shack or lean-to. Many live in the city dumps and many also
live in the city’s cemeteries. Dr.
Eduardo Serrano, head of the Manila Health Department's preventable diseases
division said about the situation, "They already know that they should not
make homes out of cemeteries. It's dangerous to their health. The problem is
they are being asked to leave but they keep on coming back."
We, as Christians, are alive in our
spirits. Christ’s death paid the penalty
of sin and redeemed our lives from spiritual death. Yet we live, so to speak, in a very large
cemetery we call, “The World.” The World
is full of dead people; dead in their sins.
We live among them and walk with them, work with them, associate with
them, but we are not like them.
We must always keep in mind that the hopes
and dreams of the unsaved are the hopes and dreams of dead people. We should not dream their dreams or hope their
hopes because we should be living the life of a redeemed person. Our Lord became death and then God
resurrected Him to life and in doing so made it possible for us to have this
life in us. We live because He
lives. Our lives should reflect the
living Lord Who dwells in us not the dead people of the world around us.
Did you ever stop to consider that when you
envy the life of an unsaved person you are envying a dead person? For me it really strikes home when I watch
news on TV. (A habit I really have to
break.) To hear the speeches of the rich
and powerful is sad, to me, because they are lost and without direction in
their lives and they stagger through life blindly stumbling over crisis after
crisis. They are trying to sway others
to their point of view in a hopeless attempt to make the world a better
place. But our world is broken far
beyond repair by the dead leading the dead.
For those who are physically dead and buried
in a cemetery there is nothing that the living can do for them. We cannot bring
them back to life. However, there is something that we can do for the living
dead - those who are alive physically but do not know Jesus as their personal
Savior. We can walk in the light of our
Lord and shine the Gospel light of the Lord on the darkness around us exposing
the world for the dark place it is. The
living dead, through the light of the Gospel, can begin to awaken from their
sleep of death and see their need for Jesus to come into their lives and bring
them the life we have.
So, whenever you walk in the world and have
contact with these living dead always let the light of Jesus shine through
you. It is not too late for some of
these to come to Jesus and receive eternal life.
Stephen
Cram
August 18,
2013
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy
and vain deceit, following the tradition of men according to the rudiments of
the world, and not in accordance with Christ.
Colossians 2:8
Visit
my pastor’s blog at http://pastorjonrhinehart.blogspot.com/.
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