United with Christ

One with himself I cannot die

My soul is purchased with his blood

My life is hid with Christ on high

My Saviour and my God

 Many times Paul talks about being ‘in Christ’ and in Romans chapter 6 he expounds on what that means.  When we became Christians we asked God, by faith, to forgive our sins and to become Lord of our lives.  At that moment our old self died, the old body of sin, destined to death, living to please itself was ‘rendered powerless’. We were set free from sin and its grip on our lives. At that moment we were raised to a new life, we were born again and we were united with Christ.  Just as Christ died and was raised to a new life, we too died and were raised with him to a new life.

Water baptism by immersion is a wonderful picture of that.  Our bodies are immersed in water signifying our old self being put to death and then we are raised out of the water signifying being raised to a new life. 

We are now united with Christ and as that truth becomes a reality in our lives, the slavery to sin weakens day on day.  The truth is - the power of sin is broken in your life.  Sin does not have any hold on you; you have died to it so how can you live in it any longer?  Paul exhorts us to ‘reckon or count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 6:11).  We have been raised to a new life and we have to work this out on a daily basis with the help of the ever present Holy Spirit. 

As we let the truth that we are united with Christ, our lives are immersed in him, his power releases us every day to walk in the freedom he won for us on the cross. God has such great plans for our lives, much better than our own plans and he unfolds these as we trust him and walk united with him.